BANKRUPT Thurrock Borough Council has paid its £10m loan back to Bucks, the local authority has confirmed.

 In September 2021, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported that Buckinghamshire Council was waiting for its £10m loan it made to the most debt-ridden local authority in the country, which is £1.5bn in debt.

Thurrock owed multiple local authorities nearly £1bn, including Bucks, in order to invest £655m of taxpayers’ money into companies via bonds, which included the purchase of 53 solar farms.

READ MORE: Bucks "expects" Thurrock Council to pay back £10m loan

The Conservative-run council in Essex issued a section 114 just before Christmas, which freezes non-essential spending and effectively declares bankruptcy, after it racked up a £469m funding black hole.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s report in July, which took three years to compile, Thurrock could end up losing £200m of the £655m it loaned to the company, which is roughly the same as its annual budget. The Bureau also outlines that £138m of taxpayers’ money is “missing”.

READ MORE: Car crashes upside down into roadside ditch in Aylesbury

Bucks said it made the £10m loan to the cash-strapped council on January 7, 2022, and “expects” that money to be repaid by January 6, 2023.

The council said the loan has been repaid in full and by the deadline when the LDRS approached the Bucks communications team.