AN unheralded and presumptive statement by Thurrock council leader Rob Gledhill that prompted claims of 'distraction politics' from his rivals has been described as 'the elephant in the room' at a meeting of senior council officers and councillors.

As reported on Thurrock Nub News last week, Cllr Gledhill produced a surprise twist to plans to build council homes on the site of one of the authority's office blocks.

During an interview in which he condemned the borough's high rise tower blocks in the south of Grays, Cllr Gledhill suggested upping to number of flats of a project currently still in its early public stages but which has taken weeks of works by multiple council officers, including three strategic leads.

Just hours before their report on the plan to demolish and build on the site of existing officers, Cllr Gledhill's intervention appears to have knocked their carefully calculated plans for six.

The matter came up at a meeting of the council's housing overview and scrutiny committee when councillors and those senior officers expressed a lack of knowledge about Cllr Gledhill upgrade to their scheme. Indeed, one of those senior officers, Keith Andrews who is the strategic lead for housing development, could only shrug his shoulders and hold his hands wide in a gesture of incomprehension when asked what Cllr Gledhill's plans were about. He didn't answer.

Speaking at the committee meeting, Mr Andrews had told members that the plans to build on the site of the office block known as Co1 and build approximately 80 flats on it, was already described as 'a tight site, it's a challenge'.

He recalled that initially it had been the council's intention to sell the site but it now appears the ruling Conservative group's much-trumpeted ambitions for the development and its fundraising potential to pay for the adjacent civic office extension were way off the mark.

Building a residential development on the site and generating cash for the council from sales had been the predominant factor in the council's creation of the nearly-completed multi-million pound civic office extension, but at the latest meeting councillors were told that when the site had been looked at in detail 'it was not considered viable on the commercial market'.

Nor was building apartments and turning the development over a private rental market!

In October last year housing portfolio holder Cllr Luke Spillman came up with the idea of making the site a completely internal project, building new social housing dwellings on the site. It was a report based on his idea that came up before the housing committee in a document prepared by Mr Andrews and senior colleagues. It detailed a plan for approximately 82 new homes to be built at the site of C01 to be owned and managed by the Council and held for affordable rent within the Housing Revenue Account. The report details the significant difficulties on the site due to its size and proximity to transport links and other buildings. And it was explained that those problems meant the cost per unit to build the new flats was considerably higher than normal – around £300,000 per flat! The report contained a detailed financial breakdown on the scheme but if Cllr Gledhill's ideas become a reality, there will need to be a significant return to the financial drawing board – as well as the construction manual. In his comments Cllr Gledhill suggested the new builds would be the ideal place to 'decant' residents from the adjacent tower blocks which he now wants to see pulled down. However, that puts a spoke in the forward thinking of one of his Tory colleague, Blackshots councillor Joy Redsell who would like to see the new build used to rehouse residents in here ward where three blighted tower blocks are said to be in an even worse condition than those in south Grays. Cllr Redsell was responding to the commitment by Cllr Spillman to bring down the blocks in her ward as a priority. She said: "We've got 7,000 sitting in a waiting list for homes. I didn't want to mention Blackshots flats but it may be an ideal place to decant people while they come down. "Blackshots has been passed now, to go through and they are the worst. People are living in terrible conditions that we don't seem to be addressing at the moment. "I think this might be that we can do an ideal development in Blackshots then move people back in. Moving them here (Grays) may be a good decant just for now." Cllr Redsell also challenged officers' assertions that it was technically difficult to build at the side of railway lines, quoting nearby buildings in Grays and in Stanford - when she pointed out than an old people's complex had been built right next to the line - and new homes in east Tilbury. She also called for better designs, saying: "We don't want the problems of 60 years ago coming back now." Committee chair, Labour's Cllr Lynn Worrell, said Cllr Gledhill's comments just a few hours before her meeting, had significantly clouded issues, saying: "I want to start with the elephant in the room, that is on Monday night the leader of the council, Cllr Rob Gledhill, talked about CO1 and he announced that the number of flats would be 93 or 94. That would be another 14 flats. "The report tonight does not cover any of that. He went on to say that you could go even higher, to 100. So what we got before is tonight is probably not what we will be getting. "I was so upset this was an 'off the cuff' statement. What does a 15 to 20 per increase in numbers do? I have put a lot of work into this and then just had it all blown out of the water." Speaking to officers, she added: "You have also worked so hard. A lot of work has gone to get here tonight but things could be completely different." Mr Andrews responded by saying: "I think the best thing I can say is that 'things change'. "I think we would have to look at it for viability with additional units. I don't think it's just as simple as adding 15 per cent to everything. But we could look at this to explore it further." When asked by Cllr Worrell if, should there be a change in numbers, new plans would come back before the committee, the officer shrugged his shoulders and held his hands wide. He didn't answer. In the discussion that followed councillors expressed concern about the cost of the development already, which as it stands is around £300,000 a flat to build! "It's not a cheap site," confirmed Mr Andrews. After the meeting Cllr Worrell said: "We are seeing stark warnings about difficulty on building on the site and it is clear that it would not take much to send the costs of this development in the same direction as the spiralling costs of the A13 – another project promised but not yet delivered. "Our residents need council homes. They don't need empty promises, guess work and to be left with the cost of picking up another failed Tory development. Before this vanity project continues, we should look at sensible sites where the same money will be spent on good quality homes for Thurrock families." Cllr Gledhill#39;s remarks in an interview with BBC Radio Essex about the proposed flats development and the overall state of high rise buildings in Grays have been condemned by Riverside ward councillor Martion Kerinb. The Labour councillor said: "What we heard from the leader of the council on Monday was disgraceful. Instead of a clear plan for sorting the blight of mould and cold, all we heard was an attempt at distracting us from the issue at hand. To announce a plan to demolish the flats and rehouse the families, without publishing a clear plan and consultation, is an insult to their intelligence. They are simply not buying it! "The Tories have run Thurrock for six years now. In that time, they have not brought forward one site that has resulted in a spade in the ground - yet now we're expected to believe that they can successfully build enough properties to decant over 300 families. My residents are questioning how a a Tory administration which couldn't even measure the windows properly on the blocks will be able to do this. "So, instead of attempting to distract my residents from the plight of mould of cold which was caused by their botched management of the cladding programme, the administration needs to get on with actually fixing the problem. They caused it; they have to sort it. We need to see less ill-thought-out press releases from the Tories and more concreate action to remedy the horrendous situation my residents find themselves in."