A LEADING Thurrock Conservative councillor has expressed his disappointment that not enough Thurrock Councillors supported the idea of a paris council for the Frost Estate in Corringham.
Conservative Deputy Leader, Cllr James Halden, said: "Wednesday night was the most shameful display of council I have seen in my five plus years in the chamber. By rejecting a parish council for the Frost Estate, we have sent the message loud and clear to Thurrock that you should not get involved in the community, not join residents groups or sign petitions, because a disgraceful collection of some of your elected councillors will vote your good intentions to death.
I sincerely thank those members who crossed party lines to support the democratic majority with the majority of the Conservative benches. To the majority of Labour councillors who killed off two years of work, I say I hope you are happy. It was heartbreaking to leave council and hear some local residents say that they would now just give up on local improvements to the area. I can’t blame them – The council commissioned a local poll that was fully compliant with the law and yielded a staggering result, and then voted to kill it.
The position is now this. A Parish Council would have given a formal and legal structure to raise money and be democratically accountable. Instead the idea is buried and it cannot be voted on again – the entire process would need to start from scratch.
"My colleagues Cllr Roast and Cllr Stewart have pledged to engage with folk on the estate to now bring the community together around any of their ideas, but it’s going to take a lot of work to convince anyone that it’s worth their time getting active in the community after the savage beating democracy took from John Kent and Labour".
