EXCLUSIVE

YET another important Thurrock Council meeting has been abandoned, leaving the frequently red-faced authority with familiar embarrassment over a failure of technology.

What happened at a meeting of the council's transport, planning and regeneration overview and scrutiny meeting left councillors angry, the public mystified and, most pointedly, the commitment of officers to their jobs in question.

And one of the outcomes of events this evening (Tuesday, 7 December) is that debate and discussion about the massively over budget and delayed A13 widening and Stanford rail station refurbishment did not happen and councillors were denied the opportunity to quiz officers.

The meeting was held at the Beehive community resource centre in Grays because of the continued failure of the calamity council to fix electrical problems in the main civic offices.

All but one of the councillors due to attend the meeting were present in person but just one officer attended to deal in person with an agenda item - street lighting.

The rest of the officers elected to stay at home and appear by video via the Teams meeting platform.

Microsoft Europe have reported technology issues with their service this evening, which undoubtedly played its part. However, It is a technology that Thurrock Council has frequently failed to master its online communications strategy and has no alternative or back up plan in place and one by one officers dropped out of the meeting and were unable to communicate.

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After an hour of trying, with unintelligible gobbledegook coming through the wi-fi m, the shambolic meeting was abandoned - not the first time in the past two years that the democratic process has been unable to be fulfilled because of the council's IT incapability!

One of the councillors left frustrated and angry is Labour's Martin Kerin, who spoke to Nub News afterwards, saying: "Tonight can be summed up in one word: shambles. We had an agenda packed with items of importance for our residents, and they couldn't be heard or debated because Microsoft Teams wasn't working and only one council officer was physically present.

"Instead of hearing about and debating the A13 Widening, Stanford-le-Hope station project, proposed increases in parking permits and charges and pay & display, we had to abandon the meeting - we were unable to do our democratic duty in holding council officers to account.

"This situation is completely unacceptable. Our residents elect us to represent them and that is what we should have been able to do tonight."

Microsoft have said they may not be able to solve their problems until possibly Friday, which may present problems tomorrow as the council has a general services committee and a cabinet meeting which will require the presence of a number of officers.