Thames Enterprise Park joins freeport bid

The Thames Enterprise Park has joined a bid to create a freeport on the Thames estuary.

The Thames Freeport bid now contains the operations, development land and infrastructure spanning the two port operations at London Gateway and Tilbury, plus Ford Dagenham and a major regeneration site at Thames Enterprise Park.

And following recent formal backing from Thurrock Borough Council and the Barking and Dagenham Council, the team is fine tuning the freeport bid ahead of submission to the government by 5 February.

‘By bringing Thames Enterprise Park into the bid, we can unlock many more benefits than might otherwise have been possible,’ said park director, Jonathan Whittingham.

‘It means that the bid can go further in stimulating the economic, social and environmental benefits not only for Thurrock and for the estuary region, but also for the UK.  That’s something that we want to be part of and where we see that we can contribute to a collective success story.’

Stuart Wallace from the Thames Freeport bid consortium, added: ‘Size matters more than ever for UK plc. A Thames Freeport ability to deliver transformational gains across trade, investment, jobs, levelling up and regeneration is substantial and just got even bigger. By boosting the bid with Thames Enterprise Park, we are taking the potential impact of our bid up a gear, which is great news for everyone who wants to see the region succeed and thrive.’

Yesterday (27 January), the government also announced that Simon Dudley has been appointed as the new chairman of Ebbsfleet Development Corporation.

Mr Dudley is the former leader of Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council where he served from 2007 to 2019.

He became a non-executive director of Homes England in 2017, becoming senior independent director and then interim chair between the summer 2019 and the autumn of 2020.

The Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) is the urban development corporation established by government in 2015 to deliver the new Ebbsfleet Garden City in North Kent.

Photo Credit – Geralt (Pixabay)