A DEVELOPER has said missing the chance to create council housing on a disused former industrial site would be “criminal”.

The company acting for the owner of the former Albany Laundry site, in Westcliff, has sent the warning to Southend Council after the authority’s planning officers recommended plans for 23 flats and three houses there be refused.

The council has already thrown out proposals for 48 flats, a third of which would be affordable homes, on half of the site last month as it offered too few parking spaces.

Henrick Darlington, managing director of Land Charter Southend, which site owner Mike Burton set up to redevelop the site, said: “It’s criminal really. I never go to planning committee meetings expecting approval, but if I ever thought there wasachance of success, this was it.”