South Ockendon
South Ockendon is a village and also Church of England parish in the Thurrock borough and unitary district in Essex in the East of England, United Kingdom. It lies on the border with Greater London, just outside the M25 motorway. The location to the north is North Ockendon. South Ockendon village came to be an area for premade houses (prefabs) fitting bombed-out locals of East London/West Essex in the extremely late 40s. Much of the initial post-war building was carried out by previous German prisoners of war. Most of these were knocked down in the late-1960s when a large Greater London Council estate, Lecaplan "concrete" construction homes-- the Flowers' Estate-- was constructed to replace them, again with pre-fabricated residences, albeit of a premium layout. The Lecaplan Type B form of pre-cast concrete (big panel concrete) terrace is built in rows of eight properties to a design by J C Tilley and manufactured by W. & C. French. In the 1970s the Ford Motor Company factory at Aveley housed Ford's Advanced Vehicle Operations which built cars such as the RS1600. The plant was wound down slowly from the late 90's yet shut totally in 2004, when the last 150 work were shed. The majority of the 150 workers accepted transfers to various other Ford or secondary websites around Essex. The 'Aveley' plant was situated along as well as west of the train line, beside Ockendon station in the Belhus Ward that part of Ockendon has actually now been turned into new housing estates, with road names after popular Ford cars in keeping with the sites background.
