The Leader of Thurrock Council, Councillor Andrew Jefferies, and Mayor, Councillor Sue Little, visited Thames Enterprise Park (19 October) to see the scale of the opportunity and the potential for transformation at one of Thurrock’s key growth locations.
Councillor Andrew Jefferies, Leader of Thurrock Council, said: “The opportunity at Thames Enterprise Park is one of the best inward investment and growth opportunities for Thurrock and it has our full support. It will be good for Thurrock in so many ways and it’s excellent to see it for myself and to fully appreciate the scale of what’s intended to happen here. Thames Enterprise Park is exciting, high-potential, beneficial and something I’m very much looking forward to seeing come to life.”
The Leader and Mayor were hosted by Development Director, Graham Stark and were shown around the 412-acre former Coryton Oil Refinery, taking in the redundant oil tanks and former oil refinery infrastructure and viewing the progress of early phase remediation and site preparation.
Graham Stark said: “The stats at Thames Enterprise Park tell you one part of the story with 5,500 jobs, up to £1.2 billion of investment, an estimated £340 million per year to the local economy, and over 400 acres of brownfield land to put back into productive economic use. But ‘seeing is believing’, as they say, and we were pleased to welcome the Leader and Mayor of Thurrock to allow them to appreciate the size and scale of the opportunity at Thames Enterprise Park.”
The approved plans for Thames Enterprise Park include an initial 3.7 million sq feet of commercial development and employment space alongside approved areas for open storage, landscaping, amenity hub, hotel, and education uses.
The development will reinvent the former hydrocarbons-based refinery into a ‘next generation’ energy-led development for advanced logistics, manufacturing, fuels of the future & energy related operations. There is also the opportunity to bring in the adjacent Thames Oilport land, thereby expanding the potential overall scale of regeneration and economic impact.
Planning permission for Thames Enterprise Park was granted in 2022
Cllr Sue Little, Mayor of Thurrock, said: “It was excellent to visit Thames Enterprise Park, to see the site and to meet the team. It’s a reminder of how important the River Thames is in both Thurrock’s history and its future.”
Thames Enterprise Park is part of the Thames Freeport. On its own – as well as in combination with its Freeport site partners – it is set to be one the largest drivers of economic change and opportunity in Thurrock and the south-east of England.
