A DEVELOPER is set to submit plans for a new supermarket on the site of a former similar business in an Essex town “within the next few weeks” – a council meeting was told.

A Wickford resident told Basildon Council’s full council meeting on November 11, he knows developer Heriot UK will be “approaching the council within the next few weeks with a plan” for the site for the former Co-Op store off Golden Jubilee Way in Wickford.

During the meeting, he also demanded the council works with the developer to give residents in the town what they want. It comes after bosses at the developer firm said it was working with the council and that it was looking forward to submitting a plan for the site.

It has been expected Asda is due to open a store at the site. The former Co-Op supermarket in the town closed down in May 2022 after its lease expired.

During the meeting, the member of the public said: “Can Basildon Council confirm that it will work with the Heriot group to ensure that Wickford Town Centre will have a supermarket located on the site of the old Co-Op supermarket, thus supporting the much needed regeneration of Wickford town itself.

“I happen to know that Heriot will be approaching the council within the next few weeks with a plan that does include a supermarket and I would like the council to look very favourably on and use that land for a supermarket and not turn it into yet another set of flats in that area.

“So Heriot will be approaching you and I want Basildon Council to accept the views of the people of Wickford that they need a supermarket there and that the requirement from Heriot should be looked at very favourably.”

Gavin Callaghan, Labour leader of the council, told the meeting the previous administration and chief executive blocked his administration's plans to regenerate the town.

He replied: “I agree entirely when he says the regeneration of Wickford town centre is much-needed, having grown up in Wickford and my family home being there for over 20 years, I think it’s fair to say my family’s neighbours and the local community in Wickford have had a fairly raw deal.

“Failed masterplans coupled with poor quality high rise flats a lack of public ownership characterised the Conservative plan for regeneration for Wickford. I am afraid I cannot predetermine what the Heriot group may or may not bring forward as a planning application on the part of the Co-Op site that they own, and therefore it is not appropriate for me to say what should or shouldn’t go on the site, but if they submit a planning application then it will be dealt with in the usual way.

“We’d all wish it was simple but planning laws are a judicial matter and therefore we will have wait to see what the application is, the merits of it, how much money is in the plan for things like infrastructure and all the rest of it before anybody from any party can comment on it.

“I would remind this council that in 2021 a deal was done for regeneration on this site, it meant the sale of Gibraltar Walk for a care home to enable the funds to be released to make improvements to the car park would have allowed Morrisons to take on a store on that site.

“My previous administration agreed the disposal of the Gibraltar Walk land in 2021 but the then chief executive sat on the contract and refused to enact the democratic will of the council until after the May 2021 elections when the then Conservative administration threw out the plan and along side it threw out nearly £2million of cash to unlock the regeneration of Wickford.

“The result has been Gibraltar Walk is now an ungodly eyesore, and Morrisons did a runner, in that time supermarkets have changed their requirements and no longer want major supermarkets in town centres, but instead want smaller stores often with flats and residential above them to generate more profit.

“Without seeing a planning application from Heriot I cant speak to the quality of any retailer and I can't speak to the number of high rise flats that they may wish to impose on Wickford.

“I also dont think anyone has actually asked the people of Wickford for their views on what should go on that site, there are a lot of assumptions but there is not much in the way of data.

“What we have to be very careful of, I would suggest, is not allowing the council to get into a position where by because the Tories failed for so long to get a decent scheme in the town we simply roll over and accept anything just for the sake of getting something done.”

Heriot UK declined to comment.