Can a tram system really help people of Thurrock and, how might it support Thurrock Council’s Transport Strategy 2040 and beyond?
Thurrock council have recently opened the doors to their online transport consultation, asking the community for feedback and input, which they say will shape the future of transport in the borough.
Thurrock has witnessed a vast industry change over the past 25 years… Gone are the heavy industrialised river fronts, power generation of West Thurrock and Tilbury or our oil processing plants now transformed into a would class dock and regeneration area.
However, arguably the same problem remains for many of these employment sites… and very little has changed in all the years… Poor transport!
It has long been recognised deficiencies exist in rural public transport offering, most people who live & work in the borough will own a car. Its actually quite incredible how quickly Thurrock’s public transport offering drops off as you extend only a few miles out from either transport hubs of Grays or Lakeside.
With many new development areas identified within Thurrock we believe now is a good time to start investing in the public transport offering right across the borough, ideally installing robust means of public transport before new communities are created to capture the best possible transport outcomes.
On this occasion, our particular focus is how Thurrock could provide improved river crossing resilience with our ‘across the river’ neighbours.
We pose the question… why is it easy to travel to Brentwood, Basildon, Southend or Romford, but for a town like Gravesend or Dartford, just 1 mile across the River Thames, it is almost impossible to reach due to congestion seen at the Dartford river crossing. Car ownership is almost essential, the X80 bus is an option tied to the same congestion… and the ferry service suspended since April 2024.
To that end, we have analysed the recently published consultation documents…
Below is a short summary as to how KenEx tram robustly aligns to the councils’ aspirations for improved public transport. Providing a regional improvement to the quality expected for a new generation.
KenEx tram directly advances the priorities and policies set out in the Thurrock Transport Strategy 2026–2040 by delivering a high-quality, cross-river mass transit link that strengthens regional connectivity and supports sustainable growth.
Its core contributions are:
1. Enables the Council’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) vision
KenEx provides exactly the type of fast, reliable, high-capacity public transport route envisaged in Thurrock’s MRT policies, including cross-river movement and integration with key hubs.
2. Addresses a major strategic barrier: river severance
The strategy highlights the lack of viable public transport crossings and the resulting dependence on private vehicles. KenEx directly resolves this by creating a new, resilient north–south connection.
3. Supports modal shift and reduces car dependency
By offering an attractive alternative to private car travel between Kent and Essex, KenEx advances Goal 3 of the strategy: expanding sustainable travel choices and boosting multimodality.
4. Connects growth areas, ports and employment centres
The tram aligns with the council’s objective to link town centres, regeneration zones and the Thames Freeport cluster, strengthening labour market access and supporting Goal 5 (economic growth).
5. Reinforces regional collaboration
The project exemplifies the cross-boundary partnership working the council identifies as essential for addressing shared transport challenges across the Thames Gateway.
Please engage in the process and voice your support for our vision of better connectivity across the river thames. This connection will bring High Speed rail much closer to Thurrock than ever before. We would suggest this project is the next best thing to having an HS1 station in Thurrock but without the huge carpark to support it!
The Thurrock Transport Consultation will run until February 2026 and can be found here . Our very supportive friends at Thurrock Nub News have shared a news story here with a few more hints and tips about who can take part and bullet point actions.