March 2023 LTC Task Force Meeting

The March 2023 LTC Task Force meeting took place on Mon 20th March, the agenda for this meeting can be found here.

The meeting was webcast live and has also been shared on the council’s YouTube channel (we’ve embedded a copy below), and our update covers some of the highlights.

TCAG presentation

In light of the absence of council officers or LTC team to present any updates to the Task Force committee, and following a few cancelled Task Force meetings, TCAG were delighted to be invited by Task Force Chair, Cllr Fraser Massey, to give a presentation on our work to the committee.

Laura gave the presentation of how TCAG came about and our work, how we went from being kicked out of a full council meeting to sitting on the LTC Task Force committee which was started up as a means to improve communications between the council, action group, residents, and others including National Highways.  Highlighting some of the many reasons why we are opposed to the proposed LTC, and what we’ve been up to over the years and more recently, to what comes next with the DCO.

TCAG presentation to March 2023 Task Force

You can scroll through using the arrows

If you are having any issues with viewing our response above it can also be downloaded as a pdf file here.

 

Some of the other committee members kindly thanked and praised TCAG’s work over the years after the presentation.  We appreciate the opportunity to present to the Task Force, and the work we have done with the council in regard to LTC, both sharing info with them and learning more about the DCO process etc from officers and the LTC team.  Together we are stronger!

 

Verbal Update

Due to the council’s financial position and also the fact that National Highways greatly reduce funding for local authorities to assist their work and representations about the LTC once the DCO application is accepted for Examination, the council’s LTC team had been paused and put on standby.

PINS had recently written to Thurrock Council to ask them for further clarification about their ability to make representation etc.  More on that here.

The council have since provided the requested info to PINS and confirmed that Mark Bradbury, Director for Place at the council would now be the main contact point for the council during LTC DCO, with Leigh Nicholson as his deputy.

Mr Bradbury gave the verbal update to the Task Force committee and answered a few questions members had.

We were told that the issues were now being resolved so that the team working on the council’s representations for LTC DCO, headed by Colin Black and Chris Stratford would soon be able to start work again.  This involved a slight restructure whereby Mr Bradbury and Nicholson would be the main contacts for the council, but the work will be carried out by the original team on a contractual basis.

He also confirmed that the council had renegotiated the funding deal with NH, and that it had resulted in a better deal than had previously been arranged.  He confirmed that funding for costs not covered by the agreement with NH had been agreed through council funds too.  Mr Bradbury said he would circulate details of the cost and funds to members in due course, in the interest of transparency.

TCAG appreciate the work that Colin, Chris and the team have carried out to date, and are hopeful that the final confirmation of the funding will be signed off very soon, so the team can resume work.

Since the Task Force meeting PINS have also published details of Thurrock Council’s request for the Pre-examination stage of the DCO process to be extended by 3 months, to allow them time to catch up with reviewing the DCO documents and preparing their important representations for the DCO.  More on that here.

 

Related

LTC Task Force meetings – click here