WORK has finally started on one of the most controversial housing developments in Thurrock.

After a number of rejected planning applications, former members of Thurrock Council's planning committee gave the green light - in 2020 - to a housing development for 57 houses and 18 apartments on land opposite Palmer's College on Chadwell Road in Grays.

The long-running application had already been debated at several meetings of the council's planning committee, where a majority of councillors rejected officers' recommendation to refuse the application.

That culminated in the council's senior legal officer directing the authority to call an extraordinary meeting of the planning committee to thrash the issue out on Thursday, 19 November, almost four years ago.

It proved to be a fractious meeting, laced with contrasting arguments, legal opinion and strong comments from councillors, but ultimately approval was granted against officers' advice.

Work has now started:

Among those who gave advice to the meeting,k after instructing it be called, was interim legal and monitoring officer Ian Hunt, who some months later left the council in mysterious circumstances, still unexplained.

Speculation at the time among council insiders was that he had been removed because his views and legal advice conflicted with a number of other senior officers and leading councillors.

In the storm that followed some months after he left the council, when it collapsed under the weight of financial and legal problems, it was speculated that Mr Hunt had been telling the truth and wanted to open up on a number of issues, but he was forced out by then CEO Lyn Carpenter.

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Mr Hunt is believed to have signed a confidentiallity agreement and has never commented publicly on his time at the council.

At the extraordinarty planning meeting when outline planning permission for the housing scheme was finally passed (a full raft of documents around the application can be found via this link), Mr Hunt said his recommendation and belief was the decision was unlawful and put the authority at risk of a judicial review.

In the end, amid the catastrophic failure of the council and government intervention, that did not materialise.

It then took until 8 July 2022, before a decision notice was issued to the applicants - with notice that work had to start within two years. 

Planning issues surrounding the application including many reserved matters, continued through the intervening period, the last being an application about sound proofing and noise insulation issues, approved in April this year.

That appeared to be the signal for work to start and now the diggers have moved in.