Month: April 2025

Plans to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day have been gathering pace in the town in recent weeks, not least with the Our Bury St Edmunds Commemorative Trail which has been kindly supported by the Bury Free Press. The number of shops and businesses taking part and displaying a trail item for participants to find has been fantastic and completed entry forms are starting to fill up our post box. The trail runs until Sunday June 1 so if you are one of the participating businesses, please do remind your customers that there is still plenty of time to find all the items. Meanwhile on Saturday May 3 many of the businesses in St Johns Street will also be hosting a variety of activities to mark the anniversary including music, face-painting and exhibits from the Rougham Control Tower Aviation Museum.

Preparations for the Our Bury St Edmunds Spring Fayre over the bank holiday weekend at the end of May are also well underway. This is a free admission event with lots of additional free activities to encourage families to visit the town centre. Of course, the idea is not just to bring people in to enjoy the town over those two days but to showcase Bury St Edmunds as somewhere they will want to visit time and time again. This year we’ll have many favourite attractions including the urban beach, astronomy, a wide variety of market stalls, face painting and some wonderful free street entertainment. The Suffolk Regiment Museum, which has supported the VE Day 80th anniversary commemorative trail, will also be there.

This is just one of our annual events to promote the town and give people reasons to visit us. Our other major event later in the year is the annual Food & Drink Festival which promotes Bury St Edmunds as Suffolk’s foodie capital. We are also planning another trail over the school summer holidays, bringing a skating rink in for the Christmas holidays and will have our usual Christmas Lights Event in November.

We know that April has been a difficult month for many businesses as changes to National Insurance Contributions and business rate relief came into effect. We do appreciate that this will affect ‘High Street’ businesses including retail and the hospitality sector. The BID will continue to seek benefits for members that can help in these circumstances – and we do have our programme of free training courses to help you meet your statutory obligations. Our Level 3 Emergency First Aid at Work and Fire Marshal courses remain among the most popular but we also have training around alcohol licensing, food safety, mental health awareness, customer service and social media. If you are a BID member business and have training requirements that we can help with or source for you please do get in touch with me at the BID office.

Visitors to Bury St Edmunds town centre will be able to find their way around the town more easily thanks to improvements being spearheaded by the town’s Business Improvement District (BID).

Our Bury St Edmunds BID has replaced and updated maps at the seven large map display stands at visitor entry points to the town.  These include the bus and railway stations, Ram Meadow and Arc-Cattlemarket car parks and St Johns Street, Cornhill and Angel Hill.  They’ll display a larger version of the visitor map in the Bury St Edmunds and Beyond Visitor Attraction guides.  The map display stands will also be refurbished.

Chief Executive of Our Bury St Edmunds BID, Mark Cordell, said: “We were able to apply for funding for this work as the prominent map display stands were looking very shabby and the maps themselves were out of date.  Although many people will use smart phone apps to get around the town, there is still a place for printed information and our aim is to provide information about the town centre in many guises to suit the needs of the vast majority of people who visit the town.”

The BID was granted funding for this project from West Suffolk Council’s Town Centre Fund – part of the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund – with the aim of increasing footfall and visitor numbers. Our Bury St Edmunds BID also provides more than 30,000 free maps annually, which are distributed through the town’s tourist information points and in a number of BID member businesses.

Mr Cordell added: “I am very grateful to our partners in this project – Bury St Edmunds-based Coastline Graphics produced the maps and fitted them into the display boards and Rowlinson Commercial and Industrial Services from Haverhill will undertake the restoration of the boards.”

Plans are also at an early stage for digital signage in a couple of town centre car parks later this year.  These will provide up to date information and further enhance the customer and visitor experience of Bury St Edmunds town centre.

Information about the town centre is always available at www.ourburystemunds.com

A free activity trail to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day is about to launch in Bury St Edmunds town centre. Open to all ages it involves discovering 10 different objects that have a World War II theme – including a ration book and newspaper declaring VE day – wherever the trail poster is displayed in shop windows. Those finding all 10 items – which could be in the window or inside the premises – will be entered into a draw with a £100 gift card as the top prize

The trail – which starts on Monday (April 7) – and competition has been organised by Our Bury St Edmunds Business Improvement District (BID) in partnership with the Bury Free Press. More than 55 town centre businesses are participating but those taking part in the competition will only need to find each of the 10 individual items once.

Chief Executive of Our Bury St Edmunds BID Mark Cordell said: “Our town centre trails are always popular especially those with an historical theme. This year is a very important commemoration of the ending of the Second World War and we wanted to reflect that with this trail and other activities we have planned later in the year. We’ve had the best take up from town centre businesses of any of our trails too, so there will be plenty of opportunities to find the 10 different items as all will appear more than once. I’m grateful to all the local businesses who are supporting the trail.

“It’s a perfect family activity giving an opportunity to visit different parts of the town centre and can be done over a number of days. We are offering three Our Bury St Edmunds Town Centre Gift Cards of £100, £75 and £50 as the prizes.”

The entry form for the trail can be downloaded from Ourburystedmunds.com and will be published in the Bury Free Press. It can also be collected from visitor information points at The Apex, Moyse’s Hall Museum and the Cathedral shop. The competition runs until June 1.

The trail is also being supported by the Suffolk Regiment Museum, which is located in Out Risbygate. The Museum has assisted with historical information to support the trail.

Full details including terms and conditions and how to enter the prize draw can be found at www.ourburystedmunds.com.