Work starts this summer on a major rebuild at Ipswich railway station.

The £2m rebuild will see the entrance to the station transformed to make it easier for passengers to reach their trains – and to improve catering and retail at Suffolk busiest railway station.

A final schedule of works is being drawn up, and the cost of the scheme has risen significantly since it was given planning permission by Ipswich council earlier in the year.

The station buffet and the WH Smith news stall will be swept away as a much larger passenger concourse is created with automatic ticket barriers across the middle of it.

There will be three retail units on the side of the concourse – expected to be a new site for the news stall, a new takeaway catering outlet and possibly a small grocery outlet selling food for passengers to take home for a quick meal.

A separate ticket office will be created and there will be an extra automatic ticket machine installed.

The station is being upgraded as part of the national stations’ improvement programme – which has already seen other major improvements at stations across the region.

An Abellio Greater Anglia spokesman said: “We are currently finalising plans with a view to begin work later this summer on a major improvement scheme for Ipswich station to upgrade the customer facilities, ticket office and retail outlets, to help provide a more modern and spacious environment for rail passengers.”

While work on the station is under way, it is likely that work will start to improve the building’s forecourt.

This is a scheme that is being prepared by the rail company in association with Suffolk County Council in a bid to improve the appearance and the traffic flow of the station entrance.

Although the two schemes are essentially separate, they are being co-ordinated in a bid to ease problems for passengers using the station as much as possible.