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By the time the unique new gates to Queen Street are put in place this summer, a large number of Haverhill children will be able to say they had a hand in making them.

The gates have been made to a design developed by students from Samuel Ward and Castle Manor colleges, and are now being finished off with the help of all the town's primary schools.

There are two sets of gates, a larger one for the Woolpack end and a smaller one for the market end, and they each are made up of a set of lime leaf design sections, which fit together to make a crown.

The leaves are thickly textured with a logo of a Q for Queen Street, surrounding an outline of people which also makes a crown.

The gates are of stainless steel and have been made by Haverhill firm Metcraft.

They have now been delivered to one of the project co-ordinators, Samuel Ward head of art Neil Williams, for the labour-intensive job of burnishing, polishing and finishing.

On Sunday mornings, when there are no pupils around, Mr Williams and helpers, who have included local councillors, set about the grinding and smoothing of the panels, with equipment which cannot involve pupils for health and safety reasons.

But then during the week there are sessions for primary school children to get stuck in with emery paper, scraping countless marks which make the steel shimmer, particularly in sunlight.

Each leaf panel will be lit from below with LDV lighting at night which will also catch all the texturing marks.

As the gates age, the steel will take on a 'tea-stain' patina, giving them a slightly autumnal quality.

Coupals Primary schoolchildren had rolled up their sleeves for the task on Friday lunchtime and were conscientiously rubbing the surfaces of the six larger leaf panels.

Mr Williams said all the children who had worked on the project so far were really proud of it.

"I have not heard one negative comment from the kids," he said. "It's a community project for Haverhill and the spirit of the whole thing is that these are our gates."

He invited any members of the public who would like to be involved to come along on Sunday mornings and contribute their share of polishing and scraping.

The work will go on until the end of June, when the panels will be returned to Metcraft for assembling, and will then have the lighting added before they are put in place in July.

The gates are designed so that, although they provide the necessary barrier to traffic, to the pedestrian, who can walk around and between them, they will appear more like pieces of public art and not form a barrier to shoppers.