THURROCK council has defending its track record of enforcing HGV traffic rules in South Ockendon, despite admitting that out of 2,041 HGV penalty charge notices handed out by its enforcement notices across the borough just 12 have been in the truck-blighted town.

Meanwhile the firm put in the eye of the storm of criticism from a cross party group of South Ockendon's six councillors and residents says it is doing its best to mitigate problems.

The issue was raised in a Thurrock Nub News story last week when all of the wards councillors highlighted a variety of problems with HGVs including continual parking in improper places, causing traffic management problems and leaving mud on the road.

Thurrock Council came in for criticism for a a lack of enforcement, but the authority's track record in the town has been defended by council leader Cllr Rob Gledhill who says its policies have been one or prevention, rather than punishment.

He told Thurrock Nub News: " "The council places great emphasis on dealing with Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) traffic within the borough, particularly issues around HGVs parking on footways or verges, which is robustly enforced by the council.

"This kind of behaviour is not only dangerous for pedestrians and road users but can also have a huge impact on the environment, causing unnecessary damage to footways and verges which results in extra repair work being needed.

"Thurrockwide the council has issued 2,041 penalty charge notices since 1 August 2020 for contraventions relating to HGVs, 796 of these relating to footway offences.

"South Ockendon is regularly patrolled by our parking enforcement team both day and night. The team engages with HGV drivers to inform them of parking restrictions, most drivers comply with restrictions and leave as soon as our officers have spoken with them, this provides a faster and more satisfactory resolution than issuing a notice.

"However 12 penalty charge notices have been issued to HGV drivers in South Ockendon over the last six months."

One of the focal points of concern has been traffic to and from the Rural Arisings reclamation site off Arisdale avenue.

Rural Arisings' Countryside Manager Dhruti Bell has responded to those concerns in details, saying: "Rural Arisings recognises the impact that lorries are having in the area, and the problems that they cause, such as parking illegally on pavements and causing mud to go on the road. We take the matter seriously and work hard to keep on top of the mud.

"We have a number of measures currently in place at the Little Belhus Site.

"All hauliers and drivers are reminded to check their vehicles for mud before leaving site.

"All lorries must drive through a shaker and then a wheel bath after which they have a long stretch of concrete haul road to spin their wheels and stop to check all mud is removed before leaving the site.

"Rural Arisings is sensitive to the issues caused to local residents and are doing what we can to get on top of this problem."

"We have a sweeper on site cleaning the public roads and our concrete haul road when lorries are actively using the site. The sweeper needs to stop momentarily due to legal resting moments from constant driving, toilet breaks, eating and emptying the sweeper from material collected.

"We clean the local bus stop and go down into South Ockendon on regular occasions and have cleaned up after neighbouring site activities to aid with the whole situation.

"This setup seems to work well, on occasion when a driver does not check his lorry properly and some mud does end up on the road the sweeper cleans it up immediately or only a few minutes after if the sweeper was off the road for reasons explained above.

"With regards to the lorries parking on pavements in the area as we have previously stated, if we are given the number plate and name of haulage company of drivers who are illegally parking and the time of incident, we can check to see if they were delivering to our site and if so speak to the company and make it know that this is not acceptable. We will ban repeat offenders from our site.

"To prevent lorries queuing up on Arisdale Avenue in the mornings we have been opening our site early to allow them to wait on our haul road.

"This was an issue raised in the past and by opening our gates early (but preventing off-loading) we have resolved this matter.

"In addition, in response to a recent increase in arrivals to the site as a result of other competitor sites we have been closing the site early to control the amount of deliveries and hence the number of lorries in the locality.

"To sum up Rural Arisings is sensitive to the issues caused to local residents and are doing what we can to get on top of this problem."

Previous related stories: