Thurrock Council’s plan to expand the civic offices was labelled ‘horrible’ and ‘excessive’ during a planning meeting that saw the controversial development rejected by councillors.

Members of Thurrock Council’s planning committee voted to reject the £10million project on Thursday night, against the advice of officers on the council’s planning team.

The rejection was led by Labour Councillor Gerard Rice, who gained support from five of the nine members on the committee despite the council’s planning team saying planning permission should be granted because the public benefit outweighs any problems.

Mr Rice said: “I look at this and I am told this is progress. But that building looks like a big carbuncle. It looks horrible.

“To detract away from that you have the Grade 2 listed church opposite. It is hardly trying to bring the area into harmony. It will look totally out of place and the mass of it is quite significant.”

He went on to call it an “excessive” development that “doesn’t complement anything”.

Councillor Gary Byrne, of the Thurrock Independents, backed Mr Rice’s comments saying that the proposed building looked like “the sort of Lego building one of my grandchildren would make”.

An agent speaking on behalf of the developer defended the plans claiming there has been “extensive consultation” about the scheme and promised it would “reinvigorate the south end of the High Street”.

When he was asked how it would reinvigorate the area, he explained that it is not accurate to label it an office building because over 50 per cent of it would be “open to community use”.

He said: “The ground floor would primarily be a community hub, multi-use, lots of uses within that, primarily members of the public interacting with the council but there is also the café which can be used for mobile working and for studying, as well as an opportunity for temporary exhibitions.

“On the first floor we have the committee rooms which will be used in their first instance for meetings which may or may not be open but they are designed in such a way that they are completely flexible so that can be booked by members of the public. The same can be said of the chamber.”

Councillor Martin Kerin spoke on behalf of residents in Grays and said if the scheme goes ahead it would “remove the last, legible vestiges of the historic character of the High Street” and loom over the residents of the nearby Pullman Court “leading to a complete lack of privacy”.

He added that it also threatens to “decimate” at least half of the independent businesses located at the southern end of the High Street.

“Our independent commercial businesses deserve our support – they shouldn’t be run out of town,” he said.

As the vote to reject the plans went against the advice of Thurrock’s planning team, officers will have to review the plans again and bring them back to a future planning meeting when they will be considered for a second time.

The second consideration will come after council leaders discuss a motion to abandon the plans entirely, which the majority of councillors voted in favour of at the end of June.