A COUNCILLOR has criticised the timing of a council meeting to debate Thurrock’s “deeply concerning” local plan.
Luke Spillman, chairman of the of planning, transport and regeneration overview and scrutiny committee, said there will be no time to scrutinise the long term plan for the borough’s housing and economic needs.
The council started working on the plan in 2014 and is only now getting close to revealing its contents to the public. Mr Spillman said his committee is scheduled to meet on December 5, just one day before the extraordinary council meeting.
A Best Value Inspection (BVI) report by Government appointed commissioners brought in to improve the debt-laden council called for effective scrutiny of council decisions.
Speaking at a full council meeting on Wednesday, Mr Spillman said: “I wrote last Thursday to the relevant director and the monitoring officer and I said how are cabinet and officers going to have time to consider and act on any recommendations that O&S makes? How are they going to have time to provide any further information that the committee requests?
“Surely this flies in the face of the criticisms made about scrutiny. To date I have not received as much as a holding response to that.”
Mr Spillman added: This document which some of us have deep concerns about, will fundamentally change Thurrock. If we are to avoid a repeat of a lot of the incidents and problems that are highlighted in the BVI report then this document must be scrutinised properly.
“Officers and cabinet must have time to respond to recommendations and I would ask the leader to make sure a proper timetable is scheduled between PTR and the extraordinary meeting to discuss the local plan.”
In response, Andrew Jefferies, leader of the council, said: “I’m happy to have a conversation with you but in all honesty I would have thought that it was more important for that local plan to come to full council so that every member, including PTR members, can have that conversation and have an input into the local plan.”
