News in Thurrock

YET again members of Thurrock Council's planning committee found themselves floundering around a controversial planning application and unable to make a decision.

And rather than make one - despite the fact that only one voting member was in support of the application - the bid for new homes on land adjacent to St Clere's Hall in Stanford-le-Hope was deferred.

A VETERAN planning councillor has issued a damning indictment of Thurrock Council's administrative process and accused officers of 'kicking items into the long grass because they don't like our decisions'.

Cllr Gerard Rice was speaking at this evening's (Thursday, 7 January) planning committee meeting and said bureaucracy was stopping the handover of a new £5 million hospice to St Luke's Hospice.

FOR a second successive evening, a busy local road was partly blocked by teatime incident.

Yesterday afternoon, just after 4pm, a number of police vehicles were involved in an incident on Muckingford Road between East Tilbury and Chadwell St Mary which ended with a being seized as it was not insured.

ESSEX Police has issued a statement saying its officers are ready to start taking tough action if there are sustained breaches of Covid-19 rules.

They are following in the footsteps of neighbouring Metropolitan Police which has instructed officers to enforce lockdown laws more "quickly" and accept fewer "reasonable excuses" in an effort to save lives.

THE mum of a baby who caught Covid-19 has praised Basildon & Thurrock Hospital for its efforts in helping him to recover from the virus.

Baby George, who is five months old, was unwell with a high fever, vomiting and mottled skin. After a restless, sleepless night, his mum Myer contacted NHS 111 who advised her to take George to A&E.

ONE of the founder members of the Independent Group on Thurrock Council, which came about following a switch of UKIP-elected councillors to operate under a non-aligned banner, believes the time may be right for a return to 'three party' politics in the borough.

Peter Smith was elected to the council as a UKIP representative for Aveley & Uplands in May 2015 and, in 2018, was one of 17 councillors who renounced the party and formed the 'Independent Group'.

PLANS have been submitted to Thurrock Council to demolish a bungalow in Corringham and build eight new ones in its place.

The submission is to develop the site known as The Willows on Morley Hill.

HOPES by homebuilders Bellway to get the green light for a major new development right on Thurrock's boundary were put on hold after members of the borough council's planning committee voted for a site visit.

The scheme for 168 dwellings on the green belt site of the former Waterworks at High Road, Fobbing, raised a significant number of unanswered questions from councillors at tonight's (Thursday, 26 November) meeting.

TODAY (Thursday, 7 January) saw the launch this morning of Thurrock Council's new initiative, 'Trailer Thursday' at the Linford Household Waste and Recycling Centre on Buckingham Hill Road near Stanford-le-Hope.

With effect from today, and on all subsequent Thursdays, only vehicles with trailers and a permit will be allowed to use the tip on Thursdays between 8am and 11.45am. After that window of opportunity, trailers will not be permitted on the site!

THERE's a new regular traveler up and down the Thames, to and from Tilbury, as a new freight transport link has been launched.

The Port of Tilbury and ADM at Erith have launched a twice-daily coastal barge operation to deliver thousands of tonnes of oil seed rape from the port's grain terminal along the River Thames to ADM Erith's processing facility.