Culture & Environment

The District's parks, open spaces and cultural and leisure facilities are excellent and have the potential to become even better. Culture, sports and the environment can help Basildon become the place in South Essex to live, work and do business.

Basildon's Sporting Village will be a first class facility for all of the community focused not only on improving sporting success but also health and wellbeing through the promotion of physical activity. It will also embrace those who live and work in the District, creating jobs for local people and helping build on Basildon's successful economy.

At Barleylands, there is an opportunity to create a Community Football Development Centre and Wat Tyler Country Park, the Gateway to the Marshes, will become a major centre for education, heritage and nature conservation with £5 million investment in a scheme that will restore part of a former explosives factory into a £2.7m Heritage Interpretation Centre powered by renewable energy.

As part of the Thames Estuary Marshes investment plan, the RSPB are planning to develop a 1,000 acre Marsh Parkland South of the A13 to create the largest wetland nature reserve within the Thames Gateway and Europe.

Basildon could also be established as a UK centre for the research and development of renewable energy and lower carbon emission technologies, with the help of industry experts, Renewables East.