Plans to demolish a historic building look certain to be rubber stamped tonight (Thursday).

An application to flatten the old Ritz snooker hall in Chapel Street, Billericay, and replace it with 15 homes will be considered by the town's area committee.

Billericay Town Council has objected to the scheme, submitted by David Wilson homes.

However, committee chairman Geoffrey Buckenham was today keeping tightlipped about tonight's recommendation by officers that the scheme be granted conditional planning permission.

Four members of the public have written to express concerns relating to highway danger, loss of the facility, loss of privacy and the effect on drainage.

Billericay Town Council leader, Trevor Stansfield, said he regretted the loss of what he regarded an important community facility.

He said: "I expect it will go through anyway - members can't object on planning grounds.

"It just seems a shame - why destroy something that's going to have historical significance in a few years' time just to line some developer's pockets?"

The building opened in 1938 as the Ritz Cinema, and is considered a classic example of pre-war cinema architecture.

It ceased trading in 1971 and reopened first as a bingo hall and then, in 1992, as a snooker club.

A bid by the town council to win listed status to try and protect the building from being bulldozed failed.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.