THURROCK’S Labour candidate for MP, Polly Billington has given a cautious welcome to the £80 million pound investment into Thurrock but believes so much more could have been achieved.
Ms Billington said: “Much as we all welcome the investment that will be coming our way from the Local Growth Fund to widen the A13, the government has missed a number of tricks. The development of Purfleet town, Grays town centre and transport improvements for Lakeside all missed out on government funding, in the announcement made this week.
“And this is despite the fact these projects already have local council support and financial backing from the private sector. The development of a new Purfleet town centre, with film and TV studios is a genuinely exciting prospect they should be supporting. Ambitious and exciting plans to expand Lakeside need better transport links to ensure success: without government support this will take longer.
“The Tory-led government has also chosen not to support the planned improvements to Grays town centre, including the road layout, access to the rail station and replacing the dangerous and outdated level crossing.
“Thurrock is a growing community with ambition, which has been let down by this government. It is a shame that the Conservative MP is failing to persuade her own government to support the community she is elected to represent.
The fact is Purfleet Grays and Lakeside all need government support so that our ambitions for our community succeed. This is a real miss by the government, and suggests the local Conservative MP hasn’t been speaking up for Thurrock.
I really wish this woman would go away or at least have one of the local Labour councillors to fill her in on the past situation of the area prior to her parachuted arrival.
If Polly spoke to her colleagues they will tell her that prior to 2004 Thurrock was almost as super safe as one of those poor Inner London or Northern seats. All the negative changes that the borough has seen has been with Labour in power either locally, nationally or both.
It was a Labour council in Thurrock which demolished many old buildings in the town, knocked up council estates, saw the removal of industry along the riverfront and thought thousands of flats would be the best thing. Under Labour Grays town centre was run down which worked well as Labours new voters, whom they imported whilst in government ,seem to like the lacklustre atmosphere of the place.
As far as I can see Labour have Thurrock right where they want it and they will do nothing that will make the borough more properous as richer new residents are unlikely to vote for them.
The Tories are not great, in fact they annoy me most of the time, but at least they have a better grasp of the boroughs issues and are not trying to rewrite history. Furthermore they have constructive ideas rather than simply slagging off Labour.
Perhaps before Polly rushes to release a press release on any subject she thinks will give her column inches she should ask the Labour Leader of Thurrock Council if he lobbied for these projects to be included in the South East Local Enterprise Partnership bid? After all it is up to LEP members to decide which projects go forward to request Government funding. If minority Labour Leader of Thurrock Council didn’t include these projects in the LEP bid then Polly should shift her lame from the Government to her Labour colleague.
*blame
Never look gift horse in the eye. Welcome £80m, make best of it, move on.
These projects do look exciting – Purfleet particularly. But let’s pause for thought – do we have the money for all of these? Yes they are on our wish list, but we aren’t out of economic troubles just yet. Would it be responsible to throw money at all of these? Can’t help but that the desire to headline grab came first here, context and sensible thinking second.
Bernard87
To a certain extent I agree with the last portions of your comments
Where it falls down is the Tory MP Jackie Doyle Price when you mention simply slagging off people she is the queen of it, treat yourself to a portion of her Facebook and Twitter accounts, you would think she a majority of 97,000 instead of 97,
If that is the case Superman then she will lose next year. It is that simple.