An effort to stop the high levels of development in Leigh have been panned.

Yesterday afternoon, Southend Council’s cabinet committee were met with the concerns of town councillors, Carole Mulroney and Peter Wexham, who called for provisions to be taken to reduce the “rapid growth” of development near the town’s centre.

The call came after the council’s development committee had recently agreed for four major projects to be granted planning permission, including The iconic Grand hotel off the Broadway.

Mark Flewitt, councillor for housing, planning and sustainability, was not impressed with attempts to halt building plans in Leigh, saying that no one town could be ‘ring fenced’ in this way.

And he suggested the move was politically driven.

He said: “This motion on the face of it is particularly good for people in Leigh.

“Of course, we would all want to ring fence an area and say ‘do not do this to me’, but we have to take into account planning laws.

“It is a clever move, especially with an election coming soon, to do something like this, so you can say to your residents: ‘Look what I did for you’.”

Mr Flewitt recommended absolutely the cabinet did not grant the motion as although Leigh is currently undergoing a number of developments, the government states that there is still a need for housing in Southend.

He said: “I do not know how you can accept this matter and not expect developers to feel their applications will not be predetermined and that residents are already against them.

“If you agree this, it would undermine the confidence of developers who want to build in the area.”

John Lamb, leader of the council and chairman of the cabinet, backed Mr Flewitt’s recommendation, adding that with the housing plan the council already has in place, whole wards cannot be struck off the list for development.

He said: “It says in the notice of motion this is not an anti-planning motion, but I think it is.

“If residents wanted to object to planning applications, they can do on the applications and that will be taken into account.

“Leigh and other areas do say ‘we do not want any more housing’ and I empathise with them, but the fact is we have a local plan and that is what we will base planning decisions on.”

The cabinet agreed fully for the motion not to be granted.

Mr Lamb added: “We should not just make a policy to say ‘no more housing in this area’.

“That is for councillors to argue their point within the planning meeting.

“I agree with councillor Flewitt and as far as I am concerned, this should not passed.”