Campaign group the Twentieth Century Society has launched a bid to get a further chunk of Basildon’s post-war town centre listed in an effort to protect its Festival of Britain architecture from redevelopment.

The group is calling on Basildon council to rethink its proposals to demolish four-storey Freedom House and a parade of shops to make way for a 10-screen cinema and restaurant complex, designed by Pollard Thomas Edwards.

Basildon approved the proposals, which the authority itself commissionned, over the summer. The decision came despite an acceptance that the redevelopment woud impact on neighbouring 14-storey Brooke House, which is grade II listed.

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