2020 has been a disastrous year for us all, not only with the problem of Coronavirus and difficulty in arranging Brexit, but also with both developing our town and loosing much of our engineering heritage.

I write as a long-term resident of the borough and a retired engineer with experience of some of the past engineering companies within our town.

Over the past months we have read in our local press of the final closure of Paxman’s Engineering Works, the latest of the old faithfuls, taking away from our town any medium to heavy engineering.

We also read that some of the artefacts of that heritage need to be rehoused due to re-organisation of the Stowmarket Museum of East Anglian borough council endeavouring to create a Cultural Quarter in the St Botolph’s area, and with the redevelopment of both the old bus park and bus depot, that there is an ideal opportunity to both improve our heritage and house many of the artefacts.

I understand that the proposed bus depot revamp is to include an arcade, the ground floor space off the arcade would be ideal for a display of our industrial heritage, which would attract visitors to the area and bring a little modern history to our town centre.

David Poppleton

Ash Grove, Colchester