Progress ? ? ?

Many articles regarding the old Laindon, as we knew it, describe it as “not a pretty place”. I wouldn’t disagree with this but would describe it myself as rustic with a charm and character all of its own, loved by many.   Would the planners and developers have the nerve and effrontery to describe their creation that is now Laindon as pretty I wonder? What wonderful successes they had with many of these developments! The “Siporex” estate for example, wow! Didn’t that do well? The “Five Links” estate was yet another roaring success wasn’t it? Not forgetting the Laindon Shopping Centre, surely this was instantly recognisable as being pretty?

It seems to me that the “planners” forgot one thing and that was to plan. The shopping centre was given over, by the Basildon Development Corporation, to private ownership in the 1970s. The expression, “rats leaving a sinking ship” comes to mind. And didn’t the private ownership company really look after the centre, keeping it well maintained and looking “pretty”? I wonder just how many more areas that were created in and around Basildon will need to be demolished as failures to then have some other characterless blob erected in their place. Oh dear, what price “progress”. Is it any wonder that so many Laindoners moved away to other areas, both near and far. Thank God for memories and websites such as this one. 

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  • Just a thought: Was the public house in the Laindon Shopping Centre, The Joker, so named to honour or humiliate the planner of the shopping centre?

    By Donald Joy (19/09/2015)
  • I totally agree Donald, I was born in a bungalow in 1950 just at the back of the High Road where the Laindon Centre now stands.  It was wonderful such happy times.  My nan & great nan lived just along the road and their bungalow, which my great granddad built had to be sold to the council for development. My grannies were told the Shopping Centre would be the SHOW PIECE of Essex.  LOL they would be horrified to know what a monster the council created.  It is heartbreaking to see what has happened to the area in the name of progress.

    By Hazel Hunter (18/09/2015)

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