The Site

Our Vision

The Westgate brewery in Bury St Edmunds has been the home of Greene King for over 200 years and has formed a key part of the town. We are proud to call Bury St Edmunds our home and we are committed to remaining within the town and connected to our rich heritage.

The historic nature of the existing site and constraints imposed by the town centre location have made it increasingly difficult in recent years to meet our sustainability goals.

A modern, state-of-the -art brewery would help us achieve our sustainability ambitions and deliver significant environmental benefits. Ultimately future proofing our ability to brew the highest quality beer for future generations and continue our role serving the community for many years to come.

New Brewery CGI

Benefits

This significant investment will deliver the following benefits:

  • A £40m investment into a new brewery.

  • Create a modern, state-of-the-art new brewery to help drive our sustainability ambitions and deliver significant environmental benefits.

  • Continue to support employment opportunities in Bury St Edmunds by retaining our brewing in the town following our investment in a new distribution centre in 2023.

  • Improve our brewing operations by creating connections to our adjacent distribution centre and reducing the number of HGVs in the town centre.

The Proposed Site

The proposed site is located on the northern edge of the Suffolk Business Park extension, which is an allocated employment site in the West Suffolk Local Plan.

Site location plan

Planning Context

The extension to Suffolk Business Park was granted in outline planning permission in 2017 (DC/16/2825/OUT) for offices, research and development, light industrial, storage and distribution uses. This permission established the principle of development with detailed reserved matters applications for individual plots coming forward since the outline permission.

In January 2023, the proposed site (plot SP128) and neighbouring (plot SP77) received detailed planning permission for the construction of two new commercial buildings for light industrial and storage and distribution with associated infrastructure.

Several companies now occupy the surrounding plots as illustrated by the Masterplan image, including Greene King’s purpose-built distribution centre, set to open later this year and Treatt, another company local to the Town.

Suffolk Park Masterplan

As the new brewery does not fall within the uses approved under the outline permission, Greene King will be submitting a new full planning application for the brewery proposals at Plot 128. The scheme will seek, where possible, to observe and conform with the approved parameters for the plot and the principles established through the Outline and Reserved Matters Approvals such as scale, access and landscaping. The scheme will also seek to ensure that the proposals demonstrate a coordinated development which will not impact on the delivery of the neighbouring plot (plot SP77), which does not form part of the proposed planning application for the new brewery.

Why Suffolk Business Park Extension?

Delivering the new brewery within an established commercial location will enable us to retain our brewing operations within Bury St Edmunds for the long-term. The Park has the necessary infrastructure in place to enable the quick delivery of a new brewery with the necessary highway infrastructure in place to enable delivery of ingredients to the brewery with ease from the locality.

Later this year, we will open our new purpose-built distribution centre at Suffolk Business Park, which is adjacent to the site currently being proposed for the brewery. Our bottling plant at Old Speckled Hen Hall is also located to the west at Moreton Hall. By delivering the new brewery in this location, it will create direct access to the existing distribution centre and easy access to the bottling plant. This will result in a significant reduction in HGV movements and a more sustainable way of working.

Site plan illustrating the site in proximity to the existing  Greene King distribution centre