THURROCK Council's chief executive has denied promising to look into planning decisions which went against officer recommendations.

A review of the quality of planning services offered by Thurrock Council by the Local Government Association's (LGA) Planning Advisory Service in 2023 concluded there was a lack of direction and good management.

Following that, Neil Speight, Independent councillor for Stanford-le-Hope West put forward two motions asking for a "deep-dive" into planning history over the past nine years".

Speaking at a place overview and scrutiny meeting on Thursday (20 March) Cllr Speight accused chief executive Dr Dave Smith of not following through on a promise to personally carry out an investigation after rejecting an inquiry as too costly.

He said: "His suggestion was that he would take personal responsibility for an investigation. His words were that it would be relatively simple to get the statistics together and that once he had them, he would, when time allowed, delve into what happened in some of the more contentious ones.

"I briefed him on a number of the contentious ones that had raised concern and he agreed to look at them and produce a detailed, subjective report."

However, Cllr Speight added: "Much of it was a simple cut and paste job. It failed to do subjective analysis on decisions, glossing over major issues such as a substantial increase, over two particular years, in planning decisions made by councillors against evidence-based objections by officers.

"The numbers were massively out of kilter with the council's average record and significantly different from the national average."

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Cllr Speight said the concerns included reports of a bribe by a developer to a councillor to support an application.

The councillor reported the incident to police but a lack of evidence meant it went no further and wasn't included in Dr Smith's subsequent report.

Dr Smith told the committee he had looked at Thurrock's planning decisions and found them to be in line with other authorities but he said: "I absolutely reject in total councillor Speight's assertions about what he says we agreed.

"I never, ever would agree to investigate individual cases on the basis of allegations where no evidence is put forward.

"Nor would I take such a drastic step to interfere in the actions of the planning service as a quasi-judicial process without substantial reason to do."