A CAUTIOUS welcome has been given to plans expected to be announced in the budget tomorrow that would release £150 million to enable community groups to buy and run neglected local assets.

Thurrock is already home to a number of community projects run by local people who took over former assets of the council and from the private sector.

Two of the most popular, with significant impact on their local communities, are the Grays Lightship café at Grays and Hardie Park in Stanford-le-Hope.

Under the plans expected to be in Chancellor Rishi Sunak's budget a new

Community Ownership Fund would be created, with an initial £150 million budget.

While that figure is national and would undoubtedly be spread thinly across the country it does open the door for some schemes and, as pledged in the Conservatives' 2019 manifesto, could become a cornerstone of local community management.

The Lightship Café community interest company runs the café at Grays Beach Park and has welcomed the suggestion. Its chair Tina Macklin, explained: "Back in 2016 the Lightship Café had closed its doors and the future looked bleak.

"It was then that a determined group of local residents came together to get the café re opened and, after long discussions with Thurrock Council, they started to run the café as a group of community volunteers.

"In time a community interest company was formed, and a lease agreed with the council that has seen the café stay open throughout the year – until Covid-19 restrictions bit.

"While we will reopen as soon as restrictions allow, I can't help but reflect that we were able to take on a neglected local asset without a community ownership fund, but am sure that having a clearer legal framework – and some government cash – would have made life much easier for us.

"There are a number of other projects in Thurrock that, I am sure, might welcome this scheme."

Grays Thurrock ward councillor and Labour leader Cllr John Kent shared in the optimism in principle and said while it was important that investment was not pumped into projects that were not sustainable, there were venues in Grays that could be supported by the scheme.

He flagged up the former Bricklayers' Arms pub in Grays which the council is determined will not be sold for residential redevelopment. They want to see it retained for community use.

"That might be an ideal project for a local community to take on if the funding were available to buy and renovate the building," said Cllr Kent. "And it might not even be stretching a point to look at the Thameside complex and theatre. It's pretty clear the council is trying to wash its hands of that facility and it doesn't want to be in the theatre-running business. Maybe keeping the Thameside alive is another potential use for this funding?"

Sources close to the government say: "The Community Ownership Fund will enable the physical regeneration of unused buildings and retraining services within communities, with revenue funding [provided]. You need a business model to sustain a building, to check the feasibility of it and then to keep investing in an underlying business. Everything will be angled on locally levelling up'."

Thurrock Nub News would welcome any ideas from other community or residents groups about venues or projects in the area that might fit the new community fund's parameters.