IT has been revealed that Thurrock Council has already spent more than £150,000 on consultants, designers and engineers as it plots to demolish a large unoccupied council house and replace it with four smaller buildings.

The controversial scheme for Loewen Road in Chadwell St Mary has been ongoing for some time and has attracted a myriad of problems, not least opposition from local residents and those who believe that the council should be maintaining its larger family properties – not demolishing them.

The council's plans for the site at 13 Loewen Road first came to light in the council's strategic list of sites it could develop, announced in February last year.

And in December last year the authority came up with a planning application to put five houses on the site.

Those plans were rubbished at a meeting of the planning committee in March this year and thrown out – with just planning committee chair Tom Kelly backing the scheme – and the other eight councillors damned it.

The house the council wants to knock down is converted to accommodate disabled limit and was regarded as a rare asset but the councillors who rejected the application, reflecting the views of many local residents.

Among them was Cllr Angela Lawrence who summed up the majority view by saying: "Uses for this big house should be looked into before we give it away.

"I can't bring myself to go with this application. It has been altered for a disability use and we have to start considering people who have disabilities.

"And how many five bed houses do we have to offer people in this area? It's a lovely old house that suits disabled people and big families. We should not give this away and should consider local residents' opinion."

Despite the comprehensive criticism of the scheme and the adverse views and objections of local residents, the council has come back with a plan to replace the existing house with four new ones.

It was supposed to have been debated at last week's meeting of the council's planning committee (the full application report can be viewed via this link) but because the council has been unable to fix electrical problems in the council offices the meeting was switched to the adjacent South Essex College. That meant that the meeting had a 9.30pm cut off time and the Loewen Road application was one of two that were then deferred to next month's meeting.

Had the application been debated, committee members would have been told of the extraordinary cost of the scheme so far – without so much as a spade touching the ground!

A Freedom of Information request reveals just how much has been spent – and that's without adding in the many hours of officer time to process the scheme!

The council says: "The redevelopment of 13 Loewen Road has to date cost £149,402.30 this includes design and planning processing costs, mechanical and electrical engineers, civil and structural engineers and cost consultants.

"We have also undertaken multiple surveys on the site. We have been required to revise the existing plans at Loewen Road this has incurred additional fees of £7,215.00.

"We do not keep a record of officer time but can confirm that we have one Housing Development Project Manager allocated to this scheme who also manages various other schemes."