A COFFEE GIANT could be given the green light to open its eighth branch in the Basildon borough, taking over a Pitsea supermarket café.

Plans for the café at the Sainsbury’s store in Cricketers Retail Park to be taken over by Costa

Coffee were recommended for approval by a senior council planning officer. Councillors will have the final say in a meeting on Wednesday.

Costa currently has seven locations across the borough, including one at Northlands Pavement in Pitsea.

Stuart Terson, councillor for Pitsea North West, said: “Another business prepared to invest in Pitsea is good news.

“It shows confidence in the market and will provide more jobs for people in Pitsea, even if it’s only a few.

“I don’t often go to that Sainsbury’s, but I would take it as a very welcome addition to what’s over there. It’s a long way from any other cafés or shops, apart from Matalan.

“It’s not in competition with independent coffee shops, so I can’t see it taking business off them. There’s nothing around the site like it.”

The existing Sainsbury’s café is vacant, prompting “no objections in principle” to the change from the planning officer.

Sainsbury’s applied to remove a condition in its planning permission, to allow Costa Coffee to trade from the café. The officer acknowledged “recent trends” have shown supermarket retailers are preferring to sub-let café spaces to dedicated operators, rather than run them themselves.

Patricia Reid, who is also councillor for Pitsea North West, said: “I feel it’s a good thing. However, I can understand people saying ‘do we really need another Costa?’

“There always was a café at Sainsbury’s. I hope opening a Costa there will encourage shoppers to hang around the area, even if it’s just to get coffee.”

“It does signify confidence that hopefully things will get better in Basildon, which town centres across the borough are in desperate need of.

“Chains and more retail in general need to invest in the borough. There’s very little in our town centres for modern-day shoppers to go to for, when they used to be thriving.

“We need business like Costa to have the confidence to invest.”