A LEADING Conservative has hit back over allegations of not caring about residents around the now-defunct adult education centre in Richmond Road.
Cllr Mark Coxshall, Conservative Cabinet Member for Regeneration said: “the college has been repeatedly broken into and site trashed, we even had squatters in there at some point so the faster that the empty buildings are down the better for residents living locally. This was the same when the old council working man’s club was demolished about 10 years on-site with local residents pleading for it to be torn down because of the problems it caused and the eyesore it had become.”
The old college site has been assessed as being able to have 50 much-needed homes and is only about 500 metres from the town centre, an area which private owners and developers are in the process of looking to see how they can deliver an improved high street offer.
Cllr Coxshall added: “Thurrock Labour appear to be full of contradictions at the moment. One minute Labour Councillors complain that not enough housing is being built, then when any sort of plan is put forward to build some, they complain that they are being built. This site is rapidly becoming an eyesore, is costing the taxpayer money, so the faster it is knocked down the faster that either the council or a private developer can get on with consulting with residents to ensure a sympathetic development to the local area.”
