One feature of living through what many regard as an all consuming pandemic is that while many people have their focus elsewhere, there’s always some shady grouping who think they can carry on with their usual shite because no one is paying attention to them. The shady grouping in question are none other than our ‘beloved’ Thurrock Council. On Wednesday 16 June at the authority’s cabinet meeting, members agreed to press on with the £10 million re-development of the civic offices in New Road, Grays: Condemnation as Thurrock Council presses on with controversial plans to redevelop civic offices.

These are just a few of the posts we’ve written over the last few years about this despicable saga:

And so it comes to pass…
Thurrock Council – ever thought about listening to your residents?
Thurrock Council couldn’t run a bath FFS!
So…who’s really running Thurrock Council?

There was some hope that with more council staff working from home and more flexibly during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, there might be a re-assessment of the viability of the proposed extension to the civic offices. No chance – hubris has been allowed to chalk up a decisive victory against common sense and the views of many of the residents in Grays and also the rest of Thurrock.

If you read the Thurrock Nub News piece linked to above, apparently there was a final ‘consultation’ about the scheme which the council claimed didn’t receive any objections. In our experience, ‘consultations’ about major developments in town centres are normally accompanied by a massive fanfare of publicity and bullshit. You only have to look over the border to see that: Basildon town centre re-development – it looks like the only way is up:( In total contrast, Thurrock Council’s announcement of the final ‘consultation’ on the civic centre offices made about as much impact as a church mouse quietly shuffling round a vast, empty church in the dead of night.

So there you have it – yet another example of the sheer arrogance of Thurrock Council as this pointless vanity project gets shoved down our throats in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis and at the start of what could well be an economic and social meltdown. Not only arrogance but incompetence as well. The council claim that this project can be done for £10m. Here’s a reminder of other Thurrock Council sponsored infrastructure projects that are a) over budget and b) behind schedule: Thurrock Council and delayed infrastructure projects – there’s a pattern emerging and it ain’t good!

It would seem that we’re in the middle of a statue/monument focused culture war at the moment. The destruction of Mulberry Square – a garden dedicated as a memorial to D Day planners – to make way for Thurrock Council’s vanity project would seem to us to be a more than suitable cause for people who want to preserve the heritage of the past: Revealed: Controversial Civic Centre expansion WILL be on site of D-Day memorial in Grays. Yet the people who supposedly ‘care’ about preserving memorials of the past, the Tories, are the ones who have sanctioned the desecration and destruction of Mulberry Square!

Had the local elections gone ahead back in May, there may well have been a few changes in the composition of the council and we could have had an administration that would have had a serious look at the scheme to expand the civic offices and may well have scrapped it. Those elections didn’t take place and a fair number of councillors got a stay of execution. How have they used that stay of execution? By shoving their poxy vanity project down our throats!

Local ‘democracy’? Seriously? This shower of shite have no legitimacy and it’s time they were well and truly held to account for their arrogance and incompetence.