THURROCK Council's monthly meeting will once more be held at South Essex College this week, with the new multi-million pound civic office still not ready for use two months after it was scheduled to open.

Wednesday's meeting will see the council debate a number of important issues including the coming budget - but unless Tories on the authority have a change of heart it is unlikely to be completed.

Last month ruling Conservatives voted to shut down the meeting at 9.30pm with many agenda items uncompleted because council leader Rob Gledhill said he didn't want to spend money on an extended hire of the building!

Critics say the decision was taken because the ruling group did not want to debate contentious topics.

Staff at the college told Nub News that they had been briefed to stay open as long as 11pm and it was a surprise to them when the meeting closed as it had been booked to run through.

A spokesperson for South Essex College declined to confirm if that was true or not, but did say: "South Essex College's Thurrock campus is available for hire to external clients with varied arrangements put in place based on their requirements.

"The finish time for each individual booking is agreed with the client in advance but the hire agreement does state that if any additional time is required, this will be subject to extra charges."

Given the meeting was subject to an agenda always likely to overrun 9.30pm and was subject to a vote of members which might have gone the other way, it seems unlikely that the council didn't book the room for the full slot.

The full agenda for Wednesday's (23 February) can be found via this link.