Bury St Edmunds: Lord Tollemache opens West Suffolk College Gateway building designed by former student

The gates of Bury St Edmunds are long gone, living on only in today’s street names - Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate, Westgate and Risbygate.

But today, HM Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk Lord Tollemache was in the town to officially open a new gateway: the £7 million Gateway building at West Suffolk College.

Designed by a former West Suffolk College student, the Gateway was named in a nod to Bury’s history and to demonstrate the college’s determination to be a gateway to wherever its students want to make their way in the world.

“Bury’s newest gateway is now the entrance of thousands of students who come here each year in search of the education, training and life skills they will need to fulfil their hopes and dreams,” said head of governors Richard Carter.

Both Mr Carter and West Suffolk College Principal Nikos Savvas stressed the college’s determination to ‘put students and their success at the heart of everything we do.’

This could not have been better evidenced than by the new building’s architect.

Richard Torkington, of Pick Everard in Bury, said he was extremely proud to have designed the flagship building at the college where he himself had studied, in the town where he grew up.

“Whenever I look at it, I feel a big sense of achievement and pride,” he said. “To think I studied there, and now I have designed the building we are standing in. It’s a privilege to be in a position to be able to do that.”