When the new road was put in from The Manorway down to the London Gateway superport, a number of local residents, us included, thought it would be a good idea to build a link road from the Stanhope Industrial Park out to the new road. The thinking being that it would spare the residents of Stanford-le-Hope, in particular those living along Wharf Road, from the misery of having heavy lorries thundering through the middle of our town. Predictably, nothing was done about it. Perhaps the idea was too much like common sense? Perhaps the then administration at Thurrock Council didn’t feel like being led by the wisdom of the people?

Well, you can imagine our unbounded delight when we saw this headline on Your Thurrock: Stanford and Corringham Conservatives campaign for link road between Stanhope Industrial Park and The Manorway. Funnily enough, we’d been discussing this very idea with our neighbours a couple of days earlier and were on the verge of sending a missive to our two local ward councillors, Cllr. Shane Hebb and Cllr. Terry Piccolo to suggest it. They must have known!

Yes, the idea has come from a couple of Tories and yes, we fully support it. Never in our lives as activists did we think we’d end up supporting a campaign call from local Tories but…we are living in strange times… Also, we’re desperate to see the back of heavy lorries thundering right past the end of our road – desperation can drive you to do strange things! Yes, we also realise that the local elections are coming up in May and it wouldn’t be cynical to connect this with the promise to campaign for a link road. Whatever – the ball is now rolling and we need to keep it rolling until we get a result.

Apparently, it’s the newly acquired Freeport status for Thurrock which will make it possible to secure the necessary infrastructure. Why the owners of London Gateway, DP World with their incredibly deep pockets, couldn’t have coughed up for this link road when the port was first being constructed is a question we’ll probably never get an answer to. Still, at long last the idea has been floated and hopefully, better late than never, we’ll get the link road and some long overdue relief from our town being blighted with heavy lorry traffic.