News in Thurrock

AMERICAN actor and singer Zac Efron highlights the huge issue of the Thames' plastic waste problem as part of a new series on Netflix airing in the UK from tomorow (Friday, 10 July).

He visited a key plastic waste hotspot along the river adjacent to Thurrock at the scenic Concrete Barges, Rainham, an area of saltmarsh where tonnes of lightweight plastic waste from the capital accumulates, forming huge plastic carpets.Thousands of single-use bottles, cotton buds and food containers wash up on the strandline at high tide, and local volunteers do their best to monitor the plastic and remove it.

FOLLOWING last week's ceremony to official rename Purfleet as 'on-Thames' Thurock Nub News history writer Susan yates reflects on the town's long past.

"And Caesar crossed the Rubicon and burned his boats! "

TODAY this phrase "crossing the Rubicon" refers to reaching a point of no return. In reality the Rubicon river in northern Italy was of little consequence except for the fact that it marked the official border between Italy and Gaul (now largely in France). In 49 B.C. Julius Caesar was the Governor of Gaul and coming to the end of his governorship he was aware that he was about to lose his power.

POLICE have issued a CCTV picture of a man they are seeking in connection with a theft in Aveley.

He is one of the suspects after tools were stolen from a vehicle parked outside the Aveley Youth and Community Centre in High Street at 1pm on Thursday, 11 June.

ON a long night of bitter recrimination and rampant party politicking played out on a dysfunctional and badly performing video platform the already tarnished reputation of Thurrock Council was hardly improved last evening (Wednesday, 8 July).

An extraordinary meeting of the council, called by Labour in the wake of news that the authority had borrowed more than one billion pounds to fund a controversial money-making investments policy, saw accusations and name-calling fly left, right and centre as the opposition got something of a bloody nose as they were roundly criticised by the ruling Conservative group.

PLANS by Thurrock Council to implement cuts to grants helping children attend school were rejected by a scrutiny committee last night.

As reported on Thurrock Nub News, the council put three cost-saving initiatives in front of the council's children's services overview and scrutiny committee.

IN the wake of more delays in dustbin collection in the borough in recent days Thurrock council's lead councillor for the environment has apologised and given an explanation for the problems crews have been experiencing.

The borough is reflecting a nation-wide trend of increasing waste tonnage which has impacted household waste collections in Thurrock and Cllr Aaron Watkins, cabinet member for environment, said: "Extra pressures created by coronavirus mean that our waste collections are not operating as they normally would.

THURROCK Council's communities portfolio holder has called on residents in the borough to reflect on the genocide that took place in Bosnia 25 years ago.

Cllr Deb Huelin, cabinet member for communities, was speaking in Srebrenica Memorial Week which marks the 25th anniversary of the genocide where more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered, simply because of their faith, on 11 July 1995.

THURROCK Council has handed over the keys to 29 new council homes in Grays.

Alma Court is an award-winning development that has transformed the former Tops Club site in Grays, providing social housing that is sustainable and fitted out to a top specification with generous space standards for residents to enjoy.

"We have to be transparent, we have to be accountable and we have to be truthful"

A LEADING Thurrock councillor has pledged an independent review into the way the borough's child safeguarding partnership works.