The Thames has shaped the landscape, history and fortunes of Thurrock for centuries. Now, we are again exploiting our location a few miles along the river from central London. We are drawing on our history to inspire local people and challenge lazy stereotypes of Essex residents.

It was, after all, at Tilbury in Thurrock that Elizabeth I inspired her troops facing the Spanish Armada, declaring that while she had the body of a "feeble woman" she had "the heart of a king".

We have an ambitious growth strategy to create 26,000 jobs and support 18,500 new homes by 2021. Thurrock Council plans to invest around £300m to secure a similar level of central government support – and to lever in over £6bn in private sector investment.

Our growth agenda ranges from the world's most modern port and the UK's largest logistics park at London Gateway to expanding a cutting edge business park for the cultural industries. The latter will next year see the Royal Opera House (ROH) adding a costume-making centre to its existing backstage production facility at High House Production Park.

We want most of the jobs promised by such large-scale projects to be taken by local people; hence education and skills are part of the DNA of our growth agenda.

We are working with local businesses with the aim of establishing a national skills academy for ports and logistics; joining one that opened at High House Production Park last year. Thurrock is on track to becoming a key learning hub for two very diverse industries.

The creative sector, including the ROH, is developing an outreach programme that is transforming our young people's cultural education.

While we continue to encourage investment in the port at Tilbury, as of last month (November) Thurrock is also home to possibly the most modern port in the world. We secured ministerial approval for the largest local development order (LDO) in Britain. It covers the 830,000 square metres logistics park to support the new London Gateway port.

Together, these two developments by global port and logistics giant DP World will create up to 15,000 jobs. The LDO route gives the developer and prospective tenants a sense of certainty. However it has also allowed the council to take a strategic approach to the s. 106 agreement and comprehensive design, construction and environmental codes.

We are using the new borrowing freedoms under the housing revenue account reforms to build several hundred council homes.

Having watched private developers build homes for 5,000 new residents in the riverside town of Purfleet that left residents with no sense of a town centre, we have learnt the lessons. The council is evaluating bids from potential partners to build 3000 new homes and establish a thriving town centre, creating 2000 jobs. The council is investing significant cash and land to enable this development.

We are negotiating with developers and gifting land in the town to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Purfleet is one of three historic towns nestling on the Thames that our growth agenda aims to revitalise and reconnect to the river – with the leisure, lifestyle and educational opportunities such a connection would provide. The others are Grays and Tilbury.

Our aspirations for the quality of housing, infrastructure and lifestyle opportunities in those towns reflects an over-arching theme of our growth agenda – ensuring we can offer a quality of life that will appeal to people who can fill the high-level jobs created by some of the developments discussed earlier.

The same ambition underpins our work with landowners and retailers to expand and diversify the Lakeside basin – adding new retail space to Britain's largest retail development - a £100m leisure centre and infrastructure improvements.

We are ready to intervene in markets where the private sector is lethargic. Last month the cabinet approved the creation of a council-owned housing company that will use money borrowed from the local authority (which has been borrowed prudentially at low interest rates from the Public Works Loans Board) to develop housing on council-owned sites.

Depending on market conditions, the company, Gloriana Thurrock, could ultimately build hundreds of homes. Most will initially be for rent at 80% of market value, providing a revenue stream to pay the interest on the loans and the costs of administrative, housing management and maintenance services provided by council staff.

Importantly, the company's activities should reassure and inspire private developers to build the aspirational homes we need.

The company name reflects that momentous occasion in 1588 when Elizabeth I was hailed by her troops with cries of "Gloriana". With an ROH opera of that name commissioned to mark the coronation of our present Queen, the image of Gloriana creates a symbolic link between our past and a brighter future for our residents.

Thurrock might not be seeing off a foreign invader, quite the reverse, we are welcoming inward investment and generating growth to confirm our place in the global logistics industry. We are living up to our motto: "By Thames to all people of the world."