Minutes of Chafford Hundred Community Forum Meeting
27th January 2014, Drake Road Community Centre
1. Welcome and apologies
Ladychair welcomed everyone to tonight’s meeting and welcomed Ian Cochrane from Vopak who will be doing a talk
2. Minutes from previous evening
Ladychair said she is in the process of updating the website with minutes from previous meetings.
3. Treasurer’s report
There is no longer funding from Thurrock Council to the forums so local groups cannot request funding.
4. Main topics for discussion
(i) Refinery on London Road
Unknown to most residents of the estate, but 60-70% of all the fuel for the South
East is sourced from the plant behind London Road. Recently there have been questions locally around the sounding of alarms coming from the plant. We were assured that the alarm does not mean there is a fire but something has happened that should not happen, something as minor as a bad connection to a vehicle. The alarms sound until the issue has been checked and the area confirmed as secure. Residents were told not to worry if they ever hear these alarms, they are not to warn residents but to warn people on site.
Once the new plant at Coryton is open, we can expect less lorry traffic in the area as at the moment there are up to 700 lorries visiting the site.
(ii) Update from Police
Andy Cayliss gave residents an update for the last year, going from 1 April 2013 to 23 Jan 2014. Overall there were 463 crimes on the estate, including 20 burglaries and 3 serious sexual offences. Vehicle crime is high at 124 recorded in this period.
Despite appearing high, these figures are down on the same period last year, with an overall drop of 16%.
Residents mentioned to the police they are sick of seeing so much blatant drug dealing around the estate but sadly the way these people conduct this activity makes it hard for the Police to catch them.
One other resident mentioned that there is a lady on the estate selling soda stream canisters containing a drug that lets people get high and she has produced cards with her contact details on and even delivers them to people – these details were passed on to the Police.
(iii) Devonshire Road
A local resident conducted their own survey of trucks going up and down Devonshire Road on one day. In one sixteen hour period they counted 846 lorries, with 82 passing between 4am and 6am. This is making residents’ lives a misery whose houses front or back on to this road. Some live just a few metres away from the road itself and since the road has been opened to HGVs and tankers their lives have been severely disrupted.
Since the meeting the junction of Drake Road and Devonshire Road has been modified but the road is still dangerous and we will be campaigning with residents and councilors to make this road safe for residents.
5. Updates
(i) Dog poo
There is a Facebook page now – search for ZeroPooChafford
This is run by a local resident Daniel Rice who is monitoring the dog mess around the estate and working closely with the police and councillors to tackle this problem
(i) Neighbourhood Watch
Roger Passfield who is the Neighbourhood Watch coordinator from West Thurrock gave an update on what they were doing. They are looking at growing the network and for watchers in every street and every area. If you are interested please apply via the Police.
There was recently a young girl attacked and robbed near Chafford Hundred station and to date the young black males have not been caught. This is obviously very worrying for people walking around at night.
6. Any other business
(i) Flooding by the Treacle Mine
Residents expressed concerns over the flooding at this roundabout. We have in the past had a talk from the team responsible for clearing the drains all over Thurrock and at the time there was a lorry working full time across the borough to clear drains. We will make enquiries as to what the situation is now and report back at the next meeting.
Thank you to everyone that attended. Best wishes, Ladychair and Team.