THE apparent duplicity of the leader of Thurrock Council over the future of the borough's Thameside Complex is likely feature highly at a committee meeting this evening (Tuesday, 7 March).

Members of the corporate services overview and scrutiny committee are to debate the future of the complex and will be asked to vote to support three recommendations at an extraordinary meeting called to discuss the venue that houses the Thameside Theatre, Grays Library and Thurrock Museum – as well as gallery, and office space and a public meeting area with refreshments space where wi-fi and other services are available.

The future of the building has been the subject of huge debate for several years, since the Conservative administration declared it not fit for purpose and plotted a programme to share arts and culture across the borough – closing the theatre and relocating the other complex services elsewhere.

The first part of that came when the Register Office was moved from the Thameside to the new Town Hall last year.

A campaign was launched to 'Save the Thameside' and has a huge groundswell of local public opinion on its side.

At one point last year it looked likely that the building would be offered or gifted to a locally-formed community interest company, with an interim start-up subsidy. Interest from another organisation in the building and the financial collapse of the council scuppered that plan just when it seemed close to being completed.

Since the middle of last year, the council's plans for the Thameside have appeared in disarray – with several changes of opinion, missed deadlines for decisions, lots of political bluster and plenty of protests from campaigners.

But following intervention of government-appointed commissioners to sort out the financial collapse after the catastrophic state of its finances were finally admitted by the ruling administration in September, things have changed.

The council is now effectively led by directives from the commissioners, whose single-most ambition is to recoup money and claw back as much cash as the government can to offset against the huge loans it has to make to the authority.

£140,000 a year director of place Mark Bradbury has been taking the axe to council assets.

Recently-appointed Director of Place Mark Bradbury has become the axeman of Thurrock – putting for sale signs on its commercial and community assets as he earns his salary of £140,000!

Some of the directives from the commissioners have been described as punitive and Draconian – as they bite deep into the services that are offered to Thurrock residents. Certainly, there seems little chance of the commissioners rubber-stamping a bid to make a subsidy offering to the group that wants to take over the Thameside.

So, undoubtedly the future for the theatre is bleak. There are plans to move the library and museum into the main civic offices – probably into the shell of the building known as CO2 where the council chamber used to be.

That building was part of a showcase policy by the Conservatives to sell it for a commercial development and rake in funds – but like so many other local Tory dreams, that plan has faded and died. Errors and miscalculations with budgets mean even plans to demolish it and build council homes are no longer tenable – but as luck (a commodity in short supply for the administration) has it, it could be a part salvation for the museum and library.

That would leave Thurrock without a theatre and a shell of a building on Orsett Road beleived to be valued around £6 million. Who would want to buy it at that price is anybody's guess. Unless someone has a remarkable conversion plan there would also be the considerable cost of demolition!

While all this has unfolded, Thurrock Council leader Mark Coxshall has been at the forefront of trying 'to put things right'. At times, albeit rarely in public, he has worn his heart on his sleeve and said he wants to make good the wrongs of the past – though all too often that rhetoric has turned into bluster and an incredibly optimistic view of a catastrophic financial position.

Comedy of errors at the council? If it were not so serious it might be a laughing matter fit for a stage play or film. But Thurrock might not have a venue to show them!

It would be unfair to call Cllr Coxshall a 'Walter Mitty' character. The fictional creation by James Thurber was a commonplace unadventurous person who sought escape from reality through daydreaming. To his credit – though others may say it led to the council's downfall – Cllr Coxshall has never fallen short when it comes to imaginative ideas to improve Thurrock. His town centre redevelopment ambitions including a new underpass for the rail station are testimony to that.

However, he might well be accused of daydreaming if he thinks that the pain ahead for Thurrock residents is going to be minimal. Brutal days of reckoning lay ahead.

Nowhere, has Cllr Coxshall's ability to play to the crowd and showboating while actually kicking a different can down the street been more obviously captured than at last week's full council meeting.

Within the space of a couple of hours, he raised hopes amid a packed public gallery of Thameside supporters, raised his arm in support of a call for everyone to show their support to 'stand with the people to save the Thameside' and spoke of his 'passion' for the Thameside. Then, when the gallery had dissipated, he voted against a motion to 'retain the Thameside Complex as a hub for arts, culture, and heritage for the community of Thurrock to own'.

And his penchant for mixing fact with untruths was exemplified with a simple statement. In response to a question from campaigner Sam Byrne he said: "In my openness and transparency. Recommendation to O&S next week (the cabinet will make the decision the following week) does not include a recommendation to close or sell the Thameside Complex and building."

That is as close as you will come to a blatant lie on the floor of the council. There is one grain of truth, the recommendations do not say 'sell' the complex, they say 'dispose'. But it is an unequivocal distortion of the truth.

And coming from Cllr Coxshall it reminded this writer of another statement he made to council in January 2014 when he was under fire for comments he made in the chamber about an opposition councillor, Robert Ray – then leader of the council UKIP group. Mr Ray is, somewhat ironically, now – like so many other ex-Kippers – an ardent Tory follower.

Cllr Coxshall made a written apology to the Mayor for his behaviour.

His justification was: "I am angry that someone who is holding elected office is showing contempt for Thurrock Council by being deliberately and blatantly dishonest.

Cllr Mark Coxshall:

"Where members abuse their freedom in the chamber to peddle untruths, that requires challenge.

"In my opinion, it is those remarks that 'do nothing but present Thurrock Council and the office of councillor in a poor light' and I hope that in future councillors will be prevented from misleading the public in this way.'

Readers may reflect on those comments almost a decade ago when Cllr Coxshall was in opposition and contrast them with another series of quotes last week.

He said: "We have got to get through the rhetoric again. We've seen some winding up and some crying wolf. And thinking about getting elected rather than governance. I am hoping that one day people will see rhetoric and crying wolf for what it is."

Cllr Coxshall has frequently spoken in council about his antipathy for 'dog-whistle politics' and putting party interest before people and purpose. Perhaps, like the eponymous Walter Mitty, Cllr Coxshall is detached from reality and is more absorbed in his elaborate political dogma than he ever cares to admit.

Cllr Coxshall's full response to Ms Byrne's question, which was:

"In your new era of openness and transparency and your calls at many meetings for all 49 councillors to be included in the important decisions ahead, may I please request that you allow the very important decision on the future of the Thameside Complex to be voted on, not only by the nine members of your party who sit on the Cabinet but indeed by all 49 councillors at a full council meeting"

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He said: "This is an executive decision and as such should stay with the cabinet. But the cabinet serves at the request of this council. The council can direct the executive if it chooses.

"But when you see though, in my openness and transparency, recommendations to O&S next week (the cabinet will make the decision the following week) does not include a recommendation to close or sell the Thameside Complex and building.

"Cabinet will be asked to submit new bids. Neither bid submitted were financially sustainable solutions and can be recommended to the cabinet. An O & S will be looking at it next week.

"Members are asked to consider the recommendations of a formal consultation and alternative delivery of the culture options.

"Any decision on the future of the Thameside theatre will follow that.

"I understand you met Mr Mark Bradbury, the director, on Monday and he explained the concerns with your proposal and if you had been able to fully address your concerns we would still have had an opportunity to take alternative proposals.

"I would encourage you to do that please. And with that consultation, there is clear and a lot of knowledge that you have.

"I am passionate and I don't want to see that missing from the borough of Thurrock.

"I would like to work with you to make a financial and sustainable solution to harness that energy."

Ms Byrne then asked: "Can I please ask every member in this chamber to rise or raise their hand to show they stand with the people of Thurrock to save your Thameside."

Thurrock councillors, including Cllr Mark Coxshall, stood or raised their hands in a show of support for the plea:

Cllr Coxshall and many of his Conservative colleagues did just that.

However, the beacon of hope that such a gesture might have lit was extinguished later in the meeting.

After Labour Leader Cllr John Tent had put the following motion "Council calls on cabinet to retain the Thameside Complex as a hub for arts, culture, and heritage for the community of Thurrock to own" Cllr Coxshall said he would 'like to support that' but he could not.

His speech to chamber, in what appeared a clear reversal of his gesture of support by raising his arm to 'save the Thameside' was: "I said four or five years ago that what is needed is fewer buildings, better services. We want to see outcomes. We don't talk about buildings, we don't talk about people, we talk about the outcomes for the community.

"Is this better than what it was before? If we get stuck in buildings we end up going down a hole.

"But that said, we have got to look at what outcomes can come about.

"What I want to see and what we can give some guarantees tonight. We need a cultural hub. We want a good central library. And we want a bloody good museum and a good way of running a proper museum.

"That's what's needed in the borough. That cultural hub. We've got to think about doing that. That's what's missing in the borough, that cultural hub. I would really like to vote for this motion tonight but what we have to do is go through a proper process.

"We've gone through a proper process and both bids were found wanting. The offer is out there for them to relook at that.

"We have voted on a capital programme that we have enough money for a library and a new museum. That's in the capital programme we have all voted on tonight. The money secured in the budget for next year, inside that capital programme.

"And what we have got to do is look at what we can do for the cultural hub. And I think that works out really well when we move into the live, work and play agenda in the local plan.

"What do we want as a cultural offering? Fifty years ago Thurrock looked completely different. Fifty years ago it was a different body here. Is that right to deliver and I'm not saying, it's not, let's just think, is that the right thing to do?

"Use this opportunity to see. Is that the best place? What does it look like? What can we do to give a nice cultural offering in the centre of Grays and a good leisure facility where people can learn and enjoy themselves.

"That's what I want to see, I want to see a great cultural hub, a fantastic theatre and library and a better museum that's actually using the assets that it has got that members of the public can see, not just when one councillor rings up privately and asks to go and see what they want to look at.

"I can't vote for this tonight but I promise you that in cabinet we are going to move forward with delivering this. It's been waiting two years too long to actually get the decision."

The locally-created business plan for the Thameside was submitted last year but has been rejected by the council.

Tonight's meeting of the O&S committee brings a raft of documents into the public domain for the first time, including the full business plan put forward by the local Save the Thameside team that was rejected by Mr Bradbury.

The council's documents extrapolate future financial projections and conclude the bid is not workable and that the theatre has to close and be disposed of.

Also included, and made public for the first time, are some details of the counter bid by Waltham International College that halted a nearly completed agreement locally in its tracks.

Thurrock's current communities portfolio holder Cllr Qaisar Abbas has been roundly criticised for his previous links with the College with some suggesting that it was improper for him to play any part in the Thameside's future because of those links. Cllr Abbas has denied any wrong doing.

What the documents also disclose is what appears to be a remarkable piece of treachery by a man who has become closely associated with the Grays and wider local arts scene.

The bid by the college begins with a statement that "Anglo Asiatic Arts and Heritage Alliance (AAAHA), a not-for-profit company agrees to act as manager of Thameside Theatre as a partner with Waltham International College under the business lease WIC contracts with Thurrock Council."

Hi Ching. Thurrock art director whose role in the bid from Waltham International College is now open to question following his close association with the 'Save the Thameside' campaign.

The Creative Director of AAAHA is Hi Ching, who for several years has benefited from grants to add to Thurrock's local arts provision. His creations have included monkey-suited acrobats, Chinese dragons and stiltwalkers that have attended borough events.

Since AAAHA was formed to carry out productions in Thurrock, it has run TICC Festival (2018, 2019), TIC Film Festival, now Thurrock Film Festival (2018-2022), Christmas Light Up in Grays Town Centre (2019), Thurrock Festival (2020-02022) and the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, touring Purfleet-on-Thames, Hardie Park and Grays Town Park.

Much of the funding for those events has come through Thurrock Council-supported grant applications.

And Mr Ching closely associated himself with 'Save the Thameside campaign' attending meetings, getting involved in business plan discussions and appearing to be a staunch supporter of the local bid.

However, it belatedly transpires that all the time he was working with the college on its proposition.

All the documents going before the committee this evening can be found via this link. Some include financial information that the council does not want publishing relating to valuations of the Thameside. It will be at the discretion committee chair, independent Cllr Fraser Massey, if that information is either included in public debate (albeit with limited reference) or the committee goes into exempt session.

Cllr Coxshall was invited to comment within this article but has declined.