Part 3 looks beyond the formal industrial estates at the businesses and working sites that supported everyday life in old Laindon.
Laindon station was not only a passenger facility. For decades it also had a working goods yard with sidings and a goods shed. Coal and building materials could be brought directly into the area by rail, making the station an important part of the local economy.
The railway goods service was withdrawn on 5 June 1967. After closure most of the sidings were lifted, although the old goods shed remained in a derelict state until the late 1980s. A permanent car park later removed the remaining traces of the former goods yard.
Removal and transport businesses were particularly useful in a district where families were frequently moving into newly built homes. Jeakins Removals became one of the local firms that later occupied the planned industrial estate, illustrating how an established local business could make the transition from old Laindon to the New Town economy.
The extraordinary amount of housebuilding in and around Laindon created steady demand for timber and building materials. Merchants, contractors and repair businesses operated from yards and shop premises, supplying both individual plotland builders and later larger construction projects.
Plant-hire businesses grew in importance during the New Town period. J. H. Rawley's machinery, for example, was used around major housing sites. Construction work was not a short episode: roads, estates, schools, shops and public buildings kept contractors and associated trades busy for years.
Not every workplace was a factory. Laindon also supported garages, vehicle repairers, metal and scrap businesses, joiners, builders, decorators and other practical trades. Many operated from modest premises that would later disappear as roads were realigned or land was compulsorily purchased.
The High Road is often remembered primarily for its shops, but it was also a place of employment. Shops had workshops, yards and storage behind them, while nearby residential roads contained businesses run from sheds, garages and outbuildings.
As old properties were demolished, businesses either closed, moved elsewhere or transferred into planned units. The new estates concentrated employment into defined industrial zones, separating workplaces from housing more clearly than had been the case in the plotland years.
Laindon's industrial story is therefore not only about big factories. It also includes the railway yard, builders, delivery firms, timber merchants, repairers and contractors whose work made the expanding settlement function.