News in Basildon

DETECTIVES are appealing for information following two separate incidents reported overnight at Festival Leisure Park, Basildon.

At around 2.35am today (Saturday 4 September), it was reported that a car driving dangerously in the car park had hit a woman in her 20s. The driver failed to stop at the scene.

BASILDON Pride's festival will take place this weekend and there will be a host of activities in the town on Saturday, 4 September.

Basildon Pride was founded in 2018 following a significant rise in hate incidents directed towards the LGBT+ Community in the borough. The response was a march through Basildon town centre with the message that "Love Conquers Hate" followed by a celebration at Colors nightclub.

PARENTS and children have spent an evening cleaning up a sports field where a charity football match is about to be played for a Basildon resident who died recently, leaving a young son.

Our sister title, Thurrock Nub News, reported on the story to get a village's football pitches fit to play on after a 'disgraceful' piece of grounds maintenance by Thurrock Council.

THE annual members' meeting of the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust which runs the region's hospitals including Basildon, will take place later this month.

It will be held on Wednesday, 22 September and will provide an insight into the work of local hospitals.

RESIDENTS and motorists who use the A13 to travel east and west - are preparing for a weekend of significant disruption due to the latest weekend closures of the A13 as part of Thurrock Council's road-widening scheme.

There will be a complete closure of the A13 between 10pm on Friday, 3 September and 5am on Monday, 6 September and it is further west than previous closures.

A BASILDON community group is hoping to encourage support for a repair project at a memorial to the fallen in Flanders.

The Basildon Town Twinning group, key supporters of the town's Forget Never project, have close links with the Lochnagar Crater at the heart of the Somme battlefields in France. Basildon's "Empty Chair" memorial is in situ at the crater which was formed when a huge mine was exploded to mark the start of the battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916.

NHS beds in the community – intended to ease pressure on hospitals – are already full across mid and south Essex ahead of the winter season as medics brace themselves for potential surge in Covid cases and flu.

The Mid and South Essex Clinical Commissioning Group joint committee, which funds frontline healthcare, was told of the worrying position as they grapple with a rise in demand with additional concern over staffing.

CONCERNED residents in an area of Basildon have called for action to bring light back to their streets.

The residents in Turner Close, Laindon, says that street lights in the area have been broken, some for as long as three years, and the lack of repairs makes the area dangerous. And adjacent streets suffer similar problems.

POLICE have called for information after burglars attempted to enter a Basildon home occupied by a mum and her children.

The incident happened in the early hours of Saturday (28 August) in Chittock Gate. The mum, Nicki Newman, 38, was disturbed by the noise and became aware of three men trying to break in with a crowbar.

POLICE have introduced a Stop and Search order in a bid to deal with incidents of anti-social behaviour when people have been reported to have been carrying weapons.

The powers have been granted to officers in the Basildon district who were alerted to four separate incidents this evening (Monday 30 August) involving assaults and reports of weapons being seen in the Billericay area.