ISG Jackson has started work on a £4 million design and build project to extend the four-star Salthouse Harbour Hotel on the Ipswich Waterfront. The Salthouse, owned by the family-owned company Gough Hotels which also includes The Angel in Bury St Edmunds, is based on a former warehouse building and has forged a strong reputation since opening in 2003, creating demand for additional capacity.

ISG Jackson has started work on a £4 million design and build project to extend the four-star Salthouse Harbour Hotel on the Ipswich Waterfront.

The Salthouse, owned by the family-owned company Gough Hotels which also includes The Angel in Bury St Edmunds, is based on a former warehouse building and has forged a strong reputation since opening in 2003, creating demand for additional capacity.

Work has now begun on the demolition of an adjoining snooker club building, which will make way for a contemporary designed extension to the hotel, providing an additional 27 bedrooms, a new reception and enlarged restaurant and dining area.

The six-storey, concrete frame structure will provide guests with views across the marina, with extensive areas of glazing and a number of south facing balconies to guest rooms. Externally, striking terracotta coloured steel cladding panels will feature to the front and side elevations of the new building.

The enlarged restaurant area will continue to feature a range of modern art installations, for which the Salthouse has become known

A spokesman for Ipswich-based ISG Jackson said that extensive pre-contract planning would ensure that the hotel continued to remain fully operational throughout the construction project, with the “breakthrough” into the new building only happening in final weeks of the scheme which is scheduled for completion towards the end of November 2009.

Ian Gifford, director of ISG Jackson's public division, said: “Our appointment to the Salthouse Harbour Hotel project brings ISG Jackson back to the Neptune Quay area of Ipswich, where we previously worked to deliver the landmark Neptune Marina mixed-use development.

“The docklands setting presents a range of complex challenges and we have adopted an innovative solution to space, access and storage restrictions by locating site infrastructure on a raised platform, which will be constructed over the access roadway.”