A LABOUR Tilbury councillor says Thurrock Council can no longer 'trust to luck' as it attempts to deal with the issue of dust pollution in the portside town.

Cllr Steve Liddiard, who represents the Tilbury St Chads ward, has welcomed moves to make reporting dust issues easier, but he has also hinted he believes the problem may be being exaggerated.

The issue of dust from companies operating at the port has been raised over decades but as the port has expanded, with increasing metal salvaging operations, and the growth of other industry around the port's curtilage, the problem has got worse.

Earlier this week the council announced it was planning a new dust reporting service, which prompted a report from the town by BBC reporters today (Thursday, 9 October).

BBC Essex featured comments from local residents who shared their negative experiences of dust in the town.

Among them were: "It blows over every night, it's frustrating for everyone. My one-year-old baby coughs all the time", "I react to dust in the town, I can see the dust being produced, you can clean the car today and tomorrow it's covered in dust" and "In the summer there are just plumes of it. I've lived here all my life, and it's got worse."

Resident Roger Brown invited the reporting team into his home and said he has problems: "If you've got your windows open, you'll see it indoors." He told of his wife cleaning furniture in the home daily and that films of dust reappear 'every day'.

Thurrock Nub News has reported on the concerns for several years and today's comments echo film report made in the town in 2021.

Since then, Thurrock Council has flirted with the issue of dust but nothing robust has been done to combat it – despite several pledges to do so by councillors.

One of them was former Tilbury Riverside councillor, Allen Mayes who held a Conservative cabinet position and often spoke about the issue. His efforts achieved little in practical terms and he stepped down from the role in a 2022 council cabinet reshuffle but speaking to Nub News earlier that year he had said he will never stop fighting to improve air quality in the area.

In 2021 he told residents that a 2019 report that had been independently commissioned about dust in the town, had reported back and indicated it was an issue – but not a risk to public health.

Fed up with official prevarication, in 2022 local resident Craig Austin led the way in campaigning and launched 'Project Tilbury' to highlight the dust issue again.

He said: "I have secured funding and engaged a specialist organisation to prepare an independent report into the dust issue with sampling due to take place in the coming days, but we need residents' help and input.

"Enough is enough now. We have also secured facilities for us to meet to discuss this as a group if you are interested."

MP Jen Craft recently discussing the recurring issue of dust in Tilbury with the town's community forum.

Empowered by the knowledge Mr Austin later became chair of Tilbury Forum, launched a 'dust dashboard, and has continued to knock on doors at the council – and borough MP Jen Craft's office. The MP later attended a meeting with the forum to discuss the dust issue.

Ultimately, it appears the council's had has been forced, with the announcement of a reporting and monitoring service.

Speaking at a recent meeting of the council's Place overview and scrutiny committee meeting , Michael Dineen, assistant director for community protection and enforcement services, said the council was taking "immediate steps" to improve its response to the long-standing issue.

The outfall from that resulted in today's BBC report and an interview with Cllr Liddiard.

He said: "I think for those people who live near the docks, it is an issue. And the other issue is reporting it.

"The Environment Agency and the port health authority are the responsible agencies for the docks and, of course, we do get to hear about the people who do live in Tilbury town.

"And what we are doing actually is to set up a reporting facility for people to write down exactly what the problem is, where they are and where they live and all the details so that we can pass them on to the Environment Agency and make sure the issue is being dealt with.

"After that what will happen is that it will be looked at, passed on to the Agency and the port heath agency and followed up to ensure that these issues are dealt with."

Nub News visited Tilbury today and filmed the huge piles of scrap being treated dockside, where damping sprays were deployed:

Cllr Liddiard acknowledged that the problem has been going on 'for years' and had not been tackled, saying: "It has, we've had all sorts of pollution but luckily most of it has been dealt with.

"We had noise pollution sort of ten years ago. The port greased all of their rails for the trains and stopped the noise.

"We had noise from ships' generators, that was hopefully stopped, we haven't had that return.

"We've had other noises we've reported to the port and that's been solved."

He then turned to dust, but appeared in conflict with residents' views about the frequency of the problem, saying: "We've reported dust coming over on windy days and again they have put sprays and equipment to keep the dust down.

"But it hasn't been every day, like has been suggested.

"We feel that on windy days, when the wind is coming from the south, directly on to the town, it is a little bit worse.

"And I think the port do realise this is an issue they are keen to sort out."

He also suggested the problem was more widespread than Tilbury.

Cllr Liddiard, who lives in Chafford Hundred, said: "I don't live in Tilbury but I'm there quite a few days. Where I live is a few miles up the road and I get the dust on my car as well and I don't always know where it's coming from.

"Sometimes it's London, sometimes it's across the river, it's a difficult problem because the dust may fall on your car and you just don't know what the cause is.

"There was a big fire in Kent yesterday and I imagine that a lot of that smoke and dust will have come across the river."

A statement from the Port of Tilbury said: "The port takes its responsibilities as a business and neighbour seriously. We are meeting all statuary environmental requirements and in Tilbury2 specifically we have all the required dust suppression systems in place across the site."

 While much of the finger of blame has been pointed at the port, some of the dust has been previously filmed rising from a site outside its boundaries.

Today, Nub News filmed outside its site:

Seras is a company that processes waste wood and supplies 1.7 million tonnes of biomass fuel to a network of UK power plants.

Among them is the Tilbury Green Power station at Grays.

In Tilbury Seras operates from a site close to the Tilbury2 roll-on-roll off dock, but it is on land owned by Anglian Water and is outside the Port of Tilbury's control.

Seras and Anglian Water have been asked to comment.