Ok I got it working- process of elimination and a bunch of dead ends.
My conclusion is an issue of going from the nougat. After I did the flashallwipe.bat from the Back-To-Stock Pie build following marcdw’s post, I could install the December TWRP update (until then the touchscreen didnt function on anything other than the TWRP from the website) After that everything went smoothly following the Essential Install guide.
Thanks again - Cheers