Venue: Committee Room 2, CO3, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, RM17 6SL
Contact: Lucy Tricker, Senior Democratic Services Officer
Email: direct.democracy@thurrock.gov.uk
Media
Items
No. |
Item |
1. |
Nomination of Chair
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Councillor Fraser Massey was elected as Chair
of the Lower Thames Crossing Task Force for the 2022/23 municipal
year.
|
2. |
Nomination of Vice-Chair
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Councillor John Kent was elected as Vice-Chair
of the Lower Thames Crossing Task Force for the 2022/23 municipal
year.
|
3. |
Minutes PDF 220 KB
To approve as a correct record the minutes of
the Lower Thames Crossing Task Force meeting held on 14 March
2022.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The minutes of the meeting from the Lower
Thames Crossing Task Force held on 14 March 2022 were approved as a
true and correct record.
|
4. |
Items of Urgent Business PDF 272 KB
To receive additional items that the Chair is
of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in
accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act
1972.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair explained that there was one item of
urgent business regarding a letter that had been sent from the
Council to the Treasury.
The Assistant Director Regeneration and Place Delivery stated that
the Council had written to the Treasury as the value for money for
the proposed Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) scheme had appeared to
decrease, and the Council were requesting that this opportunity to
modify the scheme to improve its value for money be explored more
fully before Development Consent Order (DCO) submission. The Chair
welcomed the letter and felt it was detailed and clearly set out
the Council’s position. The Vice-Chair echoed these comments
and felt that the best way to ensure that this scheme did not go
ahead was to prove that it did not provide value for money. The
Thames Crossing Action Group (TCAG) Representative thanked officers
for their hard work on the letter and felt that it echoed the
points that had been made by the Task Force over recent
years.
The Chair reminded residents that the consultation was due to close
at 11.59pm on Monday 20 June 2022 and urged residents to fill out
the consultation.
|
5. |
Declaration of Interests
Additional documents:
Minutes:
There were no interests declared.
|
6. |
LTC Consultation Response (to follow)
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Assistant Director Regeneration and Place
Delivery explained that the document would outline the
Council’s response to the consultation and that it was agreed
that it would be submitted to Full Council. He stated that National
Highways (NH) had allowed the Council until 4 July 2022 to allow
the response to pass through governance processes before
submission.
The Senior Consultant Stantec stated that the consultation response
was divided into four sections. He explained that the first section
was a 10-page summary document and introduction, which would be
presented to Full Council. He stated that the second section dealt
with prematurity and adequacy of consultation. He stated that the
team had considered the LRC consultation was premature as the
Council had only just received the traffic modelling data; and no
Health Impact Assessment (HIA) or air quality and noise assessment
results had been received to understand impacts or mitigation. He
stated that officers had also deemed the consultation as inadequate
as there had been no consultation events in Chadwell St Mary or
South Ockendon, and the consultation had only been for a period of
five and a half weeks, rather than eight weeks, which was preferred
by the Council and provided by NH in the previous consultation. The
Senior Consultant Stantec explained that section three of the
response provided a summary of technical issues, and section four
dealt with the response to the 26 changes outlined in the
consultation, of which 15 were in Thurrock. The Senior Consultant
Stantec explained that this section responded to areas such as the
Community Involvement Consultation response; modelling changes;
changes to the A13/Orsett Cock junction; Tilbury Fields; Tilbury
Operational Access; utilities; cyclists and horse-riders (WCH)
rights of way; landscaping around the A13 Junction and North Road;
air quality and noise impacts; land and property compensation;
nitrogen impacts and mitigation; health, equalities and wellbeing;
and climate change and decarbonisation.
The Chair thanked officers for their hard work in preparing the
Council’s response and asked if officers could submit the
response as soon as possible for Full Council, to ensure Members
could read and make appropriate comment. The Chair queried how many
changes to the scheme had been proposed since 2018. The Senior
Consultant Stantec replied that most changes were outlined in the
various consultation ‘Guides’, but approximately
100-150 changes had been made since 2018, with approimately 20-30 of these categorised as
significant changes. The Assistant Director Regeneration and Place
Delivery added that many residents appeared confused by the ad-hoc
nature of the consultations and were
unaware of the full scheme and its impact, and asked if Members
could help ensure that their residents understood the potential
impacts relevant to them.
The Chair queried the raised areas of land around the A13. The
Senior Consultant Stantec stated that this was outlined in the
Guide on page 65, but listed areas such as along Stifford Clays Road, where the earth bund would
rise approximately 15m above existing ground level; and alongside
the existing A13 where the earth bund ...
view the full minutes text for item 6.
|
7. |
Work Programme PDF 99 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair stated that NH would be invited to
the July meeting, which could be an in-person meeting, and the
Health Impact Assessment would be added as a verbal update to every
future meeting.
|