In news that will not surprise anyone living in Thurrock, there are financial issues with the reconfiguration of the council’s civic offices. This is how it has been reported in depth by Thurrock Nub News:

‘Absurd & shameful’ scheme for civic office flats will see council borrow millions and there’s no accounting for cost of ‘vanity project’ extension. New report appears to contradict boasts and proclamations.

THURROCK Council is planning to borrow more than £15 million to part finance the demolition of half its civic offices in Grays and build 82 social housing dwellings on the site.

The overall cost of the project will be more than £26 million, of which £10 million is already in the council’s housing revenue account from the sale of previously council-owned properties.

The council’s proposals are revealed in a report to next week’s housing committee – and it presents a far different picture to that painted by Conservative councillors several years ago when they boasted about the site being used to generate significant commercial revenue for the borough – and more than enough to fund the building of its new civic office extension.

Through many meetings in which there was significant opposition from the council’s opponents, – which at that time included two current cabinet members Cllr Luke Spillman and Jack Duffin who were damning in their condemnation of regeneration portfolio holder Cllr Mark Coxshall’s rhetoric – the ruling group were adamant that there would be no cost to residents for the new extension and that the whole new build project at each end of the offices would be self-financing.

You can read the rest of this piece here.

There’s probably a lot we could say about this but it would only be repeating what we’ve written more times than we care to remember about this utter shitshow of a local authority. So, we’re going to let the memes and graphics do the talking – feel free to use and share…