A new planning document has been adopted in East Suffolk to help conserve and enhance the district's historic environment, including a number of vital buildings in the Felixstowe area.

Landguard Fort and the Martello towers are just a part of the town's rich heritage, which the council is looking to protect and enhance.

East Suffolk Council has adopted a new Historic Environment Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), which will seek to facilitate change in a way that protects and enhances the historic environment, to support existing policies used when determining planning applications.

East Suffolk has an historic environment which is widely recognised as being of very high quality and importance, with approximate 4,000 listed buildings and 52 conservation areas. Its local character and distinctiveness are derived from the diversity of architecture, landscape and coastal settings, which have given rise to an architectural typology of farmhouses, picturesque cottages and churches as well as resort tourism, military research and defence, fishing and agri-industry, park and garden structures, energy and landed estates.

Buildings and structures that typify the East Suffolk area range from 16th century moot halls, a wide representation of 16th and 17th century farmhouses, the grandest Georgian country house in Suffolk, designed 18th and 19th century landscapes and 19th and 20th century military airfields, towers and pagodas.

The Historic Environment SPD provides comprehensive guidance on a range of topics including conservation areas, listed buildings and non-designated heritage assets and sustainable construction and renewable energy. Guidance is included about making changes and alterations to historic buildings, including extensions and alterations to a historic building, development within the setting of a historic building and replacing windows and porches.

The SPD also addresses how maintenance and repair can be undertaken in a way that protects the historic significance of a building, including repairs to different materials, such as brick, timber, thatch, wattle and daub and tiles. It also includes guidance and information about shopfronts and historic gardens, which form part of the varied heritage of East Suffolk.

Cllr David Ritchie, cabinet member for Planning and Coastal Management, said: "In East Suffolk we are fortunate to have a rich historic environment which includes a wide range of different buildings, structures and landscapes. The new Historic Environment Supplementary Planning Document will help us protect and enhance this environment by providing guidance on a range of topics to assist those undertaking repairs, alterations or extensions of historic buildings or developments that could affect such buildings."

Two rounds of consultation have informed the preparation of the SPD. The first was an initial consultation in September/October 2019 which helped to inform the scope and content of the SPD, and this was followed by public consultation on the draft SPD between December 2020 and February 2021.

View the Historic Environment Supplementary Planning Document and supporting document at www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/supplementary-planning.