A SENIOR Thurrock councillor, who is becoming increasingly critical of the current administration, has levelled a broadside against the timing of a meeting to debate the borough's "deeply concerning" local plan.

Conservative councillor for Ockendon, Cllr Luke Spillman, chairman of the of planning, transport and regeneration overview and scrutiny committee, said there will be no time to scrutinise the long term plan for the borough's housing and economic needs.

Earlier this year llr Spillman quit his post on the ruling administration's cabinet over failings by senior officers to effectively manage the borough's waste collections.

And at last month's full council meeting, Cllr Spillman was on the front foot - arguing against a plan to pay senior officers more money.

Now he thinks the local plan is at a parlous position.

The council started working on the plan in 2014 and is only now getting close to revealing its contents to the public. Councillors were recently given briefings on what might be happening in their wards - and it would be fair to say there was a degree of disappointment about the scope and detail of the plans from a number of members - including Cllr Spillman.

In a bid to push the plan through, the administration has called an extraordinary meeting of the council in December. The meeting has been supported by council leader Cllr andrew Jefferies - even though in September he slated independent council members for calling an extraordinary meeting to debate the state of planning - and the local plan! He questionned why it was necessary to discus planning at a full council meeting. Now he appears to have made an extraordinary U-turn!

The special meeting called by the five independent members, passed a unanimously-supported call to commission a fully independent inquiry into the management and achievements of Thurrock Council's planning department since 2015 – with its remit to produce a year-by-year performance analysis. And to delve into the reasons why the council still does not have a local plan, six years after officers were asked to produce one.

Cllr Jefferies appears now to want to force through a local plan before that can happen.

But Cllr Spillman is among those councillors who think it's being progressed at too fast a rate now, and there is no time for proper scrutiny, even though a Best Value Inspection (BVI) report by Government appointed commissioners brought in to improve the debt-laden council called for effective scrutiny of council decisions.

His committee is scheduled to meet on December 5, just one day before the extraordinary council meeting.

Speaking at a full council meeting on Wednesday (25 October), Cllr Spillman said: "I wrote last Thursday to the relevant director and the monitoring officer and I said how are cabinet and officers going to have time to consider and act on any recommendations that O&S makes?

"How are they going to have time to provide any further information that the committee requests?

"Surely this flies in the face of the criticisms made about scrutiny."

Mr Spillman added: "This document which some of us have deep concerns about, will fundamentally change Thurrock. If we are to avoid a repeat of a lot of the incidents and problems that are highlighted in the BVI report then this document must be scrutinised properly.

"Officers and cabinet must have time to respond to recommendations and I would ask the leader to make sure a proper timetable is scheduled between PTR and the extraordinary meeting to discuss the local plan."

In response, Cllr Jefferies said: "I'm happy to have a conversation with you but in all honesty I would have thought that it was more important for that local plan to come to full council so that every member, including PTR members, can have that conversation and have an input into the local plan."