The couple moved with Brian’s parents because his father was relocated by his employer, Carreras, a cigarette manufacturer that opened a factory in the Essex town in 1959.
Eileen and Brian were given their own council house in the 1960s while Eileen was pregnant with their first child. Standing underneath Basildon’s iconic (but dilapidated) brutalist high rise, Brooke House, the couple reflect on how that stable home with “affordable” rent helped them save a deposit so they could buy a home of their own.
Sir Keir Starmer hopes to recreate these sorts of places with “new generation new towns” as the Labour Government looks to meet its target of building 1.5m homes.
Prime minister Harold Macmillan visits Basildon in 1959, shortly after it became one of Britain’s first new towns (Photo: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Locals have voiced concerns over a lack of affordable housing and shop closures in the town(photo: Bloomberg)
After moving to Basildon, Brian went on to work at the local Shell Haven oil refinery, and Eileen worked as a pattern cutter for boat sails. However, in 1999 the oil refinery closed down, as the cigarette factory where Brian’s father worked had done in 1984.
If Eileen and Brian moved to Basildon as a young couple expecting a baby today, it would likely be a very different experience.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the number of people looking for work has been rising in Basildon in recent years. In 2024, the area had an unemployment rate of 4.7 per cent, higher than national and regional averages. The number claiming benefits has also risen.
Robins Pie & Mash shop owner Thomas Alcrest said businesses are struggling with high rents and soaring staff costs (Photo: Vicky Spratt/The i Paper)
“I worry about where they will be able to afford to live and what sort of jobs they will be able to do when they grow up,” she says.
Basildon is typical of many English towns. Home to about 190,000 people, it is neither very rich (though some nearby villages are) nor deprived. It is conservative, despite not being wealthy, which is why “Basildon Man” came to be understood as the sort of voter that the Tories could capture from Labour in the 1980s.
However, the average house price here is £337,833, more than 10 times the average worker’s salary.
Flats are close to retail spaces, the council’s offices are next door to a theatre and a church, and if you’d visited a few decades ago, you’d have found thriving markets here too. The bandstand in nearby Gloucester Park hosted a festival called Basildon Rock from 1978 onwards, which saw early performances from Basildon residents such as Alison Moyet as well as members of Depeche Mode.
The plan is to build 495 new flats in the town centre, on the site of a now-closed Marks and Spencer.
Those are the words of 57-year-old Thomas Alcrest. He is the owner of one Basildon shop which is most definitely not shuttered up – the independent family-run Robbins Pie & Mash which has been going in London and Essex since the 1920s.
“They’ve put our business rates up, Labour have put our [National Insurance] contributions for staff up… so everything’s hard at the moment,” he says.
Basildon’s Eastgate shopping centre, pictured in 1986. Shop closures have left a number of sites unoccupied today (Photo: Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)
As Alcrest sees it, the Government is “not looking after the small business owner”.
“They’ve only given us a five-month lease,” he says. “And they wanted six months’ rent upfront – our rent is £60,000 a year here.
Basildon’s original design not only includes the town centre, but also a series of housing estates in villages in the surrounding area, such as Laindon, Pitsea, Vange, Dunton, Langdon Hills and Nevendon.
In 1953, Bonallack & Sons coachbuilders moved to Basildon. Ford opened a tractor plant here in 1964, and the British cosmetics giant Yardley followed in the mid-1960s.
The world has changed almost unrecognisably since Basildon was built, including the advent of online shopping and the closure of many British factories as trade became more global.
She said: “If I go to the theatre in Basildon, I can’t get home easily. After 6pm, the buses run every hour, and on Sundays, they stop at 8pm.
Shop closures in Basildon town centre have led to local concerns over a lack of communityJeff Henry, 53, is a Conservative councillor for Essex County Council. He was also a borough councillor for six years until losing his seat in 2024.
New Holland tractors – a major manufacturer with global exports – are based in Basildon. Similarly, a Costa Coffee roastery moved here from south London in 2017, one of the largest in Europe. There is also an Amazon warehouse hub.
Henry wants Basildon to thrive, but he worries about his town’s future.
Basildon council confirmed that they have recently approved 1,163 new homes, and raised £16.3 million for infrastructure improvements.”
The New Holland tractor plant has provided a major employment boost to the town (Photo: Getty Images Europe)
“It feels like government is happening to us now, not with us,” he reflects. “We need the houses, but we have to plan ahead. Will there be enough trains to London? Will there be enough jobs here? Will the one hospital, which is already the main hospital for the entire area from Thurrock, be able to cope? I’m not sure it’s being properly thought through.”
Henry looks around Basildon’s Eastgate shopping centre. He remembers how the department store chain Allders, which went bust in 2005, used to be here. Then Debenhams took over before collapsing in 2020 and leaving a gap which is still yet to be filled.
“It was amazing when this shopping centre opened,” Henry remembers. “I hope it can be great again”.
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “Our next generation of new towns will be well-designed communities which deliver hundreds of thousands of affordable and high-quality homes, as part of the largest building programme since the Second World War.
“We expect at least 40 per cent of homes in the new towns to be affordable, and to be created alongside good jobs and the infrastructure communities need, so we can restore the dream of a secure home for families.”
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