Councillors vote on 26 October on withdrawing Basildon's Local Plan. Cabinet has backed a legal challenge to the 31 December deadline and set aside £500,000 for appeals.
Basildon councillors will vote on Monday 26 October on whether to withdraw the borough’s draft Local Plan. The motion has been put down for an extraordinary meeting of the full council at 7pm.
It comes days after the council’s Cabinet agreed to fight the government’s deadline for the plan. Cabinet met on Thursday 15 October and voted unanimously to accept a King’s Counsel’s advice on challenging the ministerial direction that the plan be submitted by 31 December.
The same meeting set aside £500,000 to defend planning appeals. A council report says developers have started going straight to the government’s Planning Inspectorate instead of waiting for the planning committee.
What the motion asks for
The motion is proposed by the Mayor of Basildon. It is the only item of business on the extraordinary meeting’s agenda, published on Friday 16 October.
If passed, the council would:
- withdraw the current Local Plan from any further progress beyond the Regulation 19 stage, “subject to all necessary procedural requirements”
- stop taking part in the current plan-making process and start looking at “an alternative approach based on demonstrably deliverable infrastructure provision”
- write to the Housing Secretary setting out its concerns about the plan’s infrastructure evidence, and Essex County Council’s comments on transport and education
- ask the government to review the housing numbers set for Basildon
The motion leans on Essex County Council’s response to the plan. It says the county, as the highways and education authority, raised “significant questions about whether sufficient and meaningful infrastructure has been secured or planned”.
It describes the plan as proposing about 29,000 homes. The plan itself sets a minimum of 27,918 homes between 2023 and 2043, much of it on land now in the Green Belt.
Cabinet’s legal challenge
The Cabinet decision was taken in private, but its minutes were published on Friday. They say Cabinet heard confidential advice from specialist planning counsel, Gregory Jones KC, who joined by video link. The advice covered the Regulation 19 consultation responses, especially on highways and infrastructure, and the direction requiring submission by 31 December.
Cabinet resolved to:
- accept Mr Jones’s advice on the strategy for “challenging the Ministerial Directions in relation to the date for submission of the Local Plan”
- let the council leader write to the minister in the terms the KC recommended
- seek an urgent meeting with Essex County Council about its highways and infrastructure objections, with fresh expert opinion where needed
- hand the leader the decision to start judicial review proceedings “if so advised”
The vote was unanimous. No claim has been issued yet, on the published record.
Why the deadline matters
The deadline is not the council’s own. On 21 July the Secretary of State used powers under section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to direct Basildon’s plan-making, as we reported in September.
The council’s own decision record from July set out the risk of not complying. It said failure “may lead to further and more intrusive intervention, including but not limited to the Secretary of State taking over as the local planning authority, removing all control from Basildon Council.”
The agenda for 26 October carries no officer report on what withdrawal would mean in law. The motion itself says withdrawal would be “subject to all necessary procedural requirements”.
£500,000 for planning appeals
The second big decision on 15 October was money. Cabinet moved £500,000 out of the Local Plan reserve into a new planning appeals budget. The council had no budget for appeals in either its planning or legal service.
The Cabinet report gives the reasons:
- Nine non-determination appeals since June 2026. These are appeals lodged because the council has not decided an application in time. Before June, the last one was in November 2023.
- Three refusals by the planning committee have been appealed, and the report expects more. It says the committee has made “a number of decisions contrary to Officer’s recommendations” since June.
- A major appeal could cost £50,000 to £200,000 to defend, based on the planning service’s experience and talks with neighbouring councils. Costs can also be awarded against a council found to have acted unreasonably.
The report is frank about the cause. It says feedback from applicants and agents “suggests that there is a lack of confidence in the planning committee”. As a result, it says, they are lodging appeals as early as they can, rather than agreeing more time.
It also says the council’s own speed of decision-making has not slipped. Between April and June 2026 it decided 100% of major applications and 73.7% of smaller ones in time.
There is a further risk. The government can designate a council as underperforming if more than 10% of its major decisions are overturned at appeal. The report says the planning service’s own assessment is that losing three major appeals could be enough. If that happened, developers could submit major applications straight to the Planning Inspectorate, which would decide them instead of the council.
The report adds that a judicial review against the Secretary of State could need “a substantial cost that is currently unaccounted for”.
Also at Cabinet: the A127
The minutes record that the Cabinet member for planning and infrastructure reported the government’s decision not to go ahead with the A127 upgrade. The minutes say the decision could affect growth, housing and sustainable development. Cabinet agreed to write to the Transport Secretary asking for the scheme to be reinstated. The minutes do not say which A127 works were dropped.
What it means for you
- The meeting is public. It starts at 7pm on Monday 26 October in the St George’s Suite at the Basildon Centre, St Martin’s Square, SS14 1DL. The agenda warns that space in the public gallery is limited.
- A normal council meeting follows at 7.30pm the same evening, with its own agenda.
- Planning applications are still being decided under the current rules. Our planning applications page explains how to comment on one near you.
- The plan’s future is not settled until the vote. We will report the outcome on 27 October.
For what the plan proposes site by site, read our Regulation 19 explainer. The 15 October Cabinet preview is here.
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