WORK on a multi-million pound project which has been mooted for more than 30 years could finally start this month.

Hutchison Ports has been given permission to vary eight of the conditions which formed part of the 2013 planning permission for Bathside Bay to allow it to make a phased start by the end of the month.

The project, estimated to cost in the region of £300 million decades ago, would see the area turned into a container port terminal.

The original planning conditions required details of the scheme to be submitted to and approved by Tendring Council before any development begins.

They stated that no work on the development could be commenced until detailed works for the improvement of the A12, A120 and the A1232 Ardleigh Crown Interchange have been approved.

But plans to amend the conditions so approval is only required before they “commence operation” of the container port were approved by Tendring Council at a special planning meeting on Wednesday.

Speaking at the meeting, Hutchison Ports’ planning advisor John Bowles said: “The development of the Bathside Bay was delayed first by the financial crisis and then by subsequent market uncertainty and latterly the pandemic.

“With the government’s decision to award free port status to the area around Harwich and Felixstowe Hutchsion Ports is now able and willing to begin the development immediately.”

The planning meeting heard the project has the potential to create 770 jobs immediately in Harwich and a further 500 in the wider area.

Tendring Council’s leader Neil Stock said: “People in that area keep on getting their hopes raised and then it never quite comes to anything.

“We are going to see development and employment created at Bathside Bay on a scale which won’t simply be good for Harwich or indeed Tendring, but it is going to be of national significance.

“It is an absolute game changer for the whole area.”

Concerns were however raised about the A120 traffic implications.

Tendring councillor Peter Harris said: “This will be a huge success and the road network will probably struggle and I wouldn’t want the villages suffering as a result of that.

“It will inevitably cause some degree of harm but the benefits are absolutely massive.”