A COUNCILLOR begged Thurrock’s planning committee not to tarnish "the jewel" in the borough’s crown by granting permission for a lorry park in Bulphan.

The application at Burrows Farm, in Brentwood Road, sought to change the use of some land from general storage, to parking for lorries using the site.

The farm, covering an area of 2500 square metres or 0.61 acres, has an authorised waste transfer station, a large fishing lake.

Mike Revell, the Tory ward councillor for village, finalists at the Britain in Bloom awards last year, was at the council meeting to speak against the plan.

He said: “I think its feared by the residents, quite rightly, that this is just an attempt to incrementally increase the use of the site for industrial purposes.

“We are all strongly against this application.

“Bulphan is one of the jewels of Thurrock. I would be deeply disappointed, as would my residents, if we should tarnish this jewel in anyway.”

Committee members heard from the council’s planning department that the land was in the green belt, and so development could only be permitted in under special circumstances, of which officers felt there were none.

The report to the committee said: “Consideration has been given to the very special circumstances which have been advanced by the applicant to justify a departure from green belt policy. However, The Local Planning Authority does not consider that these very special circumstances have sufficient weight to warrant a departure from green belt policy and do not outweigh the harm identified from the expansion of the waste transfer operations into the green belt and the resulting loss of openness to the green belt arising from this proposal.”

There were also concerns about road safety as well, as the farm has two accesses to the busy A128, and it was feared that the extra vehicle movements would cause problems.

The committee were minded to go with the officer recommendation, and voted to refuse the application.