ANGRY Conservative councillors in the east of the borough launched a pre-emptive attack on developers' plans for a block of flats in Stanford-le-Hope – but the meeting they were targeting may not be taking place.

Following news that a water leak has caused the postponement of meetings at Thurrock Council's Civic Offices, including tomorrow's scheduled full council meeting which has now been switched to a double header in October – it is not yet known if Thursday's planning committee will be going ahead.

If it does, the developers for the proposed 32 flats at Sand Pits car park in Stanford will go into it with a flea in their ear from local ward councillors who have rekindled a long-running criticism of a previous Labour administration.

A statement from them says: "When Labour sold Sand Pits car park against the wishes of Stanford-le-Hope residents and SS17 Conservatives, it included the provision for 101 free car parking spaces. The application is to come back to the planning committee on 23 September 2021 without that being included, and a reduced number of car park spaces."

Stanford West councillor and the authority's deputy council leader Cllr Shane Hebb says: "It doesn't matter how many times a variant of this application comes forward, I cannot say it any different way. When Labour wrongly sold this land, way below its value, the connected Planning application did include free 101 car parking spaces. This application, knowingly, simply fails to honour the spirit of what this site was sold for.

"This application – if passed – will not make Stanford-le-Hope more viable. To make the town more viable; we need free car parking, in the way which was promised - the worry is that a loss of more car park spaces, and continuing to charge for parking, could make things worse.

"101 free car parking spaces, for three hours, has to be a red-line in this debate - and we call on the developer to honour that agreement."

Cllr Hebb's dissatisfaction with the whole Sand Pits issue goes back many years, as this link to a news report from 2015 shows.

You can view full details of the latest application for the site – several previous ones have been rejected including the loss of an appeal in March – via this link.