FOLLOWING a difficult and at times fractious meeting last night (Thursday, 11 March) when Thurrock council planning councillors slammed the door on new designs for Stanford-le-Hope rail station, a leading councillor and former chair of the authority's transport scrutiny committee has welcomed the latest development.

As reported on Thurrock Nub News last night planning councillors refused to consider giving approval to plans put before then for 'stage one' of the Stanford rail station redevelopment until they were also given full site of the plans for the station car park and transport.

It was the view of seven of the eight members of the committee that the two things were integral to each other and could not be viewed as separate entities. The only person who disagreed was chairman Cllr Tom Kelly who appeared keen to drive permission through but found his message was falling on deaf ears.

That decision has been applauded by Labour councillor Martin Kerin who said today: "This is great news. For too long, a veil of secrecy has been drawn across this scheme.

"It simply wasn't good enough to present a planning application with only one site of what is actually a two-site plan. Thankfully, the committee saw through this.

"Going forward, we need complete openness and transparency. We need to know the plan for both the existing station site and the former Daybreak Windows site.

"This project is over budget and delayed - it's time to genuinely get it back on track."