Thurrock LINK has been lauded over the last few years for its work in defending the rights of the vulnerable in the borough. But according to reports, they were frog-marched out of their offices in the Queensgate centre, Grays on friday afternoon.
THE PRINCIPAL of Palmer’s College, Mark Vinall has hit back at concerns that only 6% of students at the Chadwell Road college go on to “good” univeristies.
Orsett Conservative councillor, Mike Revell challenged education bosses at Thurrock Council last week over the low numbers of students going to top universities. In 2009-10, no Thurrock student went up to either Oxford or Cambridge and all other stats see Thurrock languishing near the bottom of the league.
The Labour Chair of the Licensing Committee, Mike Stone, in fact proposed – against the recommendation of officers – that DPPOs should be introduced in four areas of Little Thurrock and Ockendon.
These include ultra marginals Bolton West, Thurrock and Eastleigh – Liberal Democrat cabinet minister Chris Huhne’s seat – although the final location for the first vote has not yet been chosen. People’s Pledge campaigners include eurosceptic Tory MP Douglas Carswell, pro-European Labour MP Keith Vaz and the eurosceptic Labour MP Natasha Engel.
FORMER BNP Tilbury councillor, Emma Colgate is at the centre of allegations that she took part in a “long-term criminal enterprise” to defraud the Greater London Authority and HM Revenue and Customs, according to court papers.
He said: “I was directing the comments at UKUNCUT. I put UKUNCUT at the end of the tweet and it has clearly been mis-interpreted. “UKUNCUT have been responsible for acts of criminal damage in London and I wanted to highlight that.”
Former deputy prime minister, John Prescott tweeted: “Heard @cllrmackenzie who thinks disabled protestors are ‘unwashed’ & should ‘move to N Korea’ is a researcher for @smetcalfemp…for now.”buckstwits said: “@CllrMackenzie Considering what happens to the disabled in North Korea (ie this sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/14810…), your comment is simply unacceptable.”
CONSERVATIVE Councillors in Ockendon and Little Thurrock are calling for an investigation after discovering that the report to committees of both licensing and full council was factually incorrect. The six councillors, (Rob Gledhill, Tom Kelly, Joy Redsell, Ben Maney, Lynn Carr and Amanda Arnold) who have spent 18 months fighting for the booze ban were elated after Labour were embarrassingly forced into a U turn at Full Council on Wednesday night.
He added: “In 2011, 520 of Palmer’s students progressed to university, with 32 going to the Russell group. Unsurprisingly the most popular destinations were local with 40 choosing the University of Greenwich followed by 33 progressing to ARU and 26 going to Essex.”
Cllr Kent added: “No doubt there will be some changes, but the refinery is a major player in Thurrock’s economy and the council will of course do all it can to help PricewaterhouseCoopers in its search to find a viable future for the site – indeed the Chief Executive will be at the Department for Energy and Climate Change tomorrow to support the business in a critical meeting with the minister.
THURROCK COUNCIL voted last night to press ahead with designated public protection orders (DPPO’s) despite advice from senior police officers that there was no evidence that they were needed. Chief Inspector Richard Baxter and former Met Inspector and now council public protection boss, Jim Nicholson sat stony faced as the Thurrock councillors ‘pulled rank” and voted through orders that they hoped would reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
Orsett councillor, Mike Revell told the full council meeting that he had seen a set of accounts. He said: “I am using T Fests accounts as an example of the type of accounts that, under new guidelines, will simply not pass inspection.
A PETITION with a massive 2221 signatures against the development of 350 homes on the South Essex College at Woodview in Grays was handed in by residents last night at Thurrock Council.
Two resident spokespersons, Ray and Sue Abbott spoke passionately against the development which would see the college transfer to Grays high street.
PRIME minister, David Cameron pledged that the government would “keep on the case” of beleaguered Petroplus. The PM was responding to a question by South Basildon and East Thurrock MP, Stephen Metcalfe at PM Questions this afternoon.
Conservative councillor, Shane Hebb successfully contested the seat in May. We caught up with Shane recently in Hardie Park to assess how the first eight months have been. In the chamber, Shane has been a confident performer,both at full council and at planning and certainly seems embedded in the east of the borough machine.
According to figures released by the GMB union, there were 10,600 households in the Thurrock that had no individuals aged 16 and over in employment out of a total number of household of 52,400. That is 20.2% of all households that include at least one person aged 16 to 64 of working age in Thurrock.
THURROCK Pensioners are invited to the Thurrock Older Peoples Partnership Board Meeting to be held in the Council Chambers on Tuesday 24th Jan, starting 10am. with the meeting closing at 1pm with refreshments.
There were 135 18-24 year olds signing on (for over six months) in Thurrock in January 2011. This has increased to 265 in December 2011. And the figure is even worse in the constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock where the figure for the number of young persons unemployed has increased from 65 in January 2011 to 235 by December 2011.
By supporting local schools, whether independent or LEA, we, as a local authority, can help ensure that all children get a decent start in life and are able to have a fair chance of attending university or taking up a trade. We need to ensure that financial poverty does not equate to a poverty of aspiration.
John Kent, the Leader of Thurrock Council, has reacted angrily to the news that plans for an airport in the Thames estuary are being taken seriously by the government.
“There are so many things wrong with this so-called Boris island idea it’s hard to believe the government want to spend public money talking about it — I suppose it could kill the proposal once and forever.”
Government has promised it will give protection to pensioners and to the single person’s discount. That means local councils will have very little flexibility about how to apply the cut in funding for council tax benefit and so will have to hit the working poor hardest. This runs completely counter to what the government says it is trying to do in its welfare reform programme.
Unite has released a film on its website spelling out its side of the dispute. National officer Jennie Formby said: “The hard-working workforce made Unilever into the global giant it is today but consumers will soon know the company better for its greedy pensions snatch than its products.
The Council should be positively encouraging this type of investment, and we won’t achieve that by doing ourselves down in the media. What Cllr. Kent should be doing, and what we would be doing were we to be in administration, would be to see what we can do to help rather than moaning.
“Supply of crude oil to Coryton is guaranteed only to the end of the month, and we must move beyond these stop-gap solutions to ensure not just the protection of nearly a thousand jobs at Coryton but also to keep the pumps flowing for British and other European motorists.
