The council's 22 September update sets the former M&S as public sector offices: consultants in October, consultation this winter, planning in spring 2027.

Basildon Council now wants to turn the empty former Marks & Spencer in Town Square into a mixed public sector office building, two months after it withdrew its own planning application to fill the same building with a food hall, maker studios and padel courts.

The change is set out in a regeneration update the council has published for its Regeneration Scrutiny Committee, which meets at the Basildon Centre at 7pm on Tuesday 22 September. The update gives the objective for the building as bringing “prominent vacant building back into use as a mixed public sector office building to support increased footfall, strengthen civic and commercial offer, and demonstrate practical approach to retrofit and asset reuse” (Basildon Council, Regeneration Update, 22 September 2026).

It also puts dates on it. One consultant team has been selected from 32 tenderers for RIBA Stage 3 planning and Stage 4 technical design work and is “due to be appointed soon”. The update then lists October for appointing the consultants and starting the project, winter for public consultation, and spring 2027 for a planning submission.

That is the first published sign of what replaces the scheme the council pulled. Its earlier application, 26/00338/FULL, was withdrawn on 6 July four days before its determination deadline, and nobody had objected to it.

Update, 25 September 2026. Cabinet approved the council’s procurement pipeline on 24 September. The pipeline puts a value and a deadline on the consultant contract:

  • £500,000 for an architect-led multi-disciplinary team to bring forward a detailed planning application for the building
  • the money was approved by Cabinet in March
  • the council wants the building fitted out and occupied by mid-2028, and says “speed of delivery of the application will be key” for that reason

The figures are in the procurement pipeline enclosure to the 24 September Cabinet papers. The printed minutes record the pipeline as approved unanimously. No decision naming the architect had been published when we checked on Friday afternoon.

Timeline of every date in Basildon Council's September 2026 regeneration update, from Make Space for Girls installations in mid to late September through to a planning application for the former Marks and Spencer in spring 2027.
Every date the council gives in the update. Source: Basildon Borough Council, Regeneration Update to Regeneration Scrutiny Committee, 22 September 2026.
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Four more sites, and what the council says about each

The same update covers four other schemes.

The Wickford supermarket site is still stalled, and parking is the sticking point. The council says negotiations are running with the current landowner and with a potential new supermarket operator and landowner at the same time. Its own summary of the problem is specific: “discussions around car parking ongoing, new operator needs some BBC owned land to achieve parking ratios”. BBC there is Basildon Borough Council. The next step given is simply to keep talking to both the current and the potential landowners.

Laindon Centre will need a fresh planning application. The council met Sanctuary, the housing association behind the scheme, in August. The update says Sanctuary “expressed commitment to finishing the scheme, under a new Planning Application”, and is working on a vision document to put to the council’s planning team in late autumn.

A Construction Academy is being set up as a pilot. The council held a workshop in August which it describes as “very positive”, and the academy will run under a lease and collaboration agreement. In September it expects to confirm the installation method and costs, meet operators, and submit a planning application for change of use. In October it expects to finalise the lease and start installation work.

Town centre safety work is waiting on money. A safety report was completed in 2025 with short, medium and long term proposals. Officers are now working up costs and funding options, with lighting, wardens, underpasses and hoarding named as the priorities, and the proposals are due to go to Cabinet and scrutiny in October.

What you will actually see in the next few weeks

Three pieces of public realm work are due to land before the end of the month or shortly after, and these are the ones residents will notice:

  • Festoon lighting and poles in Town Square, late September or early October, alongside repairs to existing lights. The update says the same treatment goes into Southernhay and St Martins “if further budget allocated”, so those two are not committed.
  • Make Space for Girls installations, an engagement project with young women about feeling safe in public space. Town Square gets hoarding, lighting, seating, planting and floor art in mid to late September. Gloucester Park gets a weaving event, a social swing, loungers, floor art and bulbs in late September or early October.
  • A mural at the railway station, painted mid-September and co-designed with Basildon Borough Youth Council. A “Basildon Market this way” sign is also due on the Orwell hoarding in late September, with the design still to be drafted.

What it means for you

  • If you use Town Square, expect works over the next fortnight. Hoarding, seating, planting and lighting are all going in at once, and Gloucester Park follows.
  • If you want to say something about the former M&S, the moment is this winter, not now. The consultation comes after the consultants are appointed in October and before the planning application in spring 2027.
  • If you shop in Wickford, nothing has been agreed. The council is negotiating with two sets of owners and has not named an operator or a date.
  • The meeting is public. Regeneration Scrutiny Committee sits at 7pm on Tuesday 22 September in St Georges Suite, The Basildon Centre, St Martin’s Square, SS14 1DL. This is a presentation to a scrutiny committee rather than a decision, so nothing on this list is being voted through on the night.

Sources