PLANS for a “game changing” multi-million pound project were given the green light and work could finally start this month after a 30 year delay.

Tendring Council agreed to vary eight of Hutchison Ports' conditions which formed part of the 2013 planning permission for Bathside Bay in Harwich to allow it to make a phased start by March 29.

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.

But with the council’s approval now, they will only be required before the container port “commences operation”.

This includes plans for detailed works for the improvement of the A12 and the A120.

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.

But Weeley and Tendring councillor Peter Harris concluded: “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.

“As in any development it will inevitably cause some degree of harm but the benefits in this application are absolutely massive.”