Basildon: £30m College Approved

Plans for a new £30 million college in Basildon have been given the go ahead.

The proposals, which would see the South Essex College relocate from its current site in the Nethermayne area to a new one in the town centre, were passed by narrow margin by councillors last night (Tuesday, January 29). 

It will see the old site knocked down and sold on for re-development and a new three-storey building, with a capacity for up to 2,000 students built in its place. 

The college will be focused on science and technology and is set to have state of the art laboratories, as well as a restuarant, cafe, health and beauty salon and 20 car parking spaces. 

The migration to the centre of the town follows in the footsteps of the two other South Essex College campuses in Southend and Grays, where new sites have replaced old ones which were in less central locations. 

It is the first development in a major regeneration of Basildon Town Centre which includes moving the market, building a new hotel, cinema, shop units and homes over the next 20 years. The new college will be built on the current market site. 

The market will then be moved to the western end of the town centre in a bid to keep people there and benefit the business between thagt site and the Eastgate shopping centre. 

There has been a number of objections to the plans though, with issues such as a lack of parking, whether or not a new college is needed at all and the link between this development and that at the Nethermayne site. 

Councillor Geoff Williams voted against the college and after the meeting told Heart why: "The relocation of the college is dependant on an application to be heard at the end of February to develop the land on the Nethermayne site, a highly sensitive wildlife site. 

"You can't have one without the other. 

"They [the developers] have stressed the viability of the college project is totally dependant on the disposal and development of the Nethermayne site." 

He also rejected the claim the college would help the regeneration of the town: "Can you honestly be persuaded 1,000 or 2,000 16 to 19 year-old students receiving no maintainence grants, very few of them on any sort of bursary are going to reinvigorate the Basildon community? 

"I've brought some figures with me - most students in that age range spend money on food, coffee, IT, trainers. 

"That's not a way to regenerate a town centre." 

The Principle of the South Essex College, Angela O'Donohue, said it would keep young people in education though: "They will have education in their town centre, so very easily accessible. 

"It'll be good quality education in state of the art facilities." 

She also told Heart, it was unfeasable to make improvements to the current site: "There is no public funding available any longer for the redevelopment of college sites, so anything the college does we need to find from elsewhere. 

"The only way we can get any money to develop the college site is to borrow or sell off something else. 

"The concept of this new building and this new site is that it will enable us to redevelop because the finance will be available to us which we wouldn't have access to if we stayed at the current site". 

Work on the site must start within the next three years and it is hoped the new campus will be open to students for the 2015/16 academic year.