AN ADDITIONAL £5.6million will be needed to complete the long-awaited construction of a new Stanford-le-Hope station, it has been revealed.

Thurrock Council, alongside a host of other groups including Network Rail and c2c, have been working on the project for a new station and transport interchange to connect bus, rail, cycle, taxi, and pedestrian movement at the station.

To date, about £13.4million has been spent out of a budget of £29million, with the council being the largest financial contributor to this project, having spent £17.2million.

The station would be used by Thurrock commuters, but also Basildon residents living in the south of the borough.

Thurrock Council is being run by Government appointed commissioners after being forced to issue a s114 notice announcing is effective bankruptcy and doesn’t have control of spending.

However, an update to the council’s planning, transport and regeneration overview and scrutiny committee, which will meet on Thursday, warns councillors more cash will need to be found despite the financial difficulties the council has.

The report said: “The remaining budget to deliver the design costs for phase two and the complete build costs for both phases is £15.6million. An internal project team review has concluded that the remaining budget allocation will not be sufficient to deliver the whole scheme outputs and additional funding will be required to complete the scheme in its entirety.

“Officers estimated that the current budget will need to be increased by a further £5.6million to complete the scheme in its entirety.”

The project includes Thurrock Council alongside UK Power Networks, South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP), c2c, Network Rail and DP World.

The report adds: “Failure to procure the new station building could result in separate financial claims from both Network Rail and c2c seeking redress.”

Fraser Massey, Independent councillor for East Tilbury, said: “I am really worried about the future of the station, since East Tilbury and Linford have lost the bus service, many more residents will have to travel to Stanford-le-Hope using the station to be able to use the local bus network.

“As the report to the committee states unless a new station building is built both Network Rail and c2c could well make financial claims against the council, this is at the same time the £7.5million grant from SELEP is going to rely heavily on keeping to tight timescales and a successful business case being submitted. If we do nothing, it will cost the council.”