THE owners of Basildon’s Eastgate Centre have revised plans for a £20million cinema – just three weeks after councillors told them to go back to the drawing board.

Basildon Council’s cross-party planning committee deferred the decision on proposals for a major revamp of the shopping complex because of concerns over its exterior appearance.

Infrared, which bought the Eastgate Centre in February 2014, is set to go face-to-face with the group of councillors once again next week after scrapping an eye-catching archway outside the South Gunnels entrance from its designs.

The illuminated “goalposts”

were intended to help the building integrate into the rest of the town centre and show it was open for business in the evening, but they were met with opposition.

Local campaigner Danny Lovey, of Ross Way, Langdon Hills, said: “This could all have been sorted out at the first meeting.

“All Infrared have done is get rid of the entrance feature all together, and a new design is likely to come forward as a separate application at a later date.

“The plans could have been approved with the goalposts as a reserved matter. All this has done is push back the whole project by nearly a month.

“I would be absolutely flabbergasted if the application didn’t go through this time.”

The rest of the cinema scheme, which also includes the creation of four restaurants, a two-storey extension, and layout changes, will remain the same.

David Lewis, chief planning officer at Basildon Council, has recommended the ambitious plans, which could bring up to 250 new jobs to the town, are approved.

He said: “Following discussion with the applicant, the scheme has been amended to omit the portal feature at the South Gunnels entrance, with all other aspects of the application remaining the same. This is intended to allow progress on the main development, if the committee resolves to approve the application, with alternative design proposals for the entrance feature to follow as a separate planning application in due course.

“This application represents an important investment into the town centre and will aid its regeneration.”

The planning committee will meet in the Basildon Centre, in St Martin’s Square, from 7pm on Tuesday to vote on the application.

Fears developers would pull out of scheme

FEARS had been raised Infrared could pull out of the ambitious ten-screen cinema scheme in the wake of the shock deferral – but it remains committed.

At the time the firm admitted it was disappointed and deciding how to proceed, prompting speculation Basildon town centre could lose out on £20million worth of long-awaited investment.

Basildon Council was forced to put its own plans to transform East Square into a leisure quarter with restaurants, cafes and bars on hold, because they also included a cinema.

The Eastgate project is expected to kick-start a much-needed evening economy in the town.

Building work on the new cinema complex was scheduled to begin this September, but could now be pushed back by a month.

It is not expected to be open for business until the winter of 2017.