Political Viewpoint

BY Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Transport, infrastructure & Environment.
With the Southend local elections apparently proceeding on May 7th, although we have quickly learnt that U-turns our now standard policy of the current government, so always expect the unexpected, this may be my last article as an elected representative of the city.
I therefore ask for a little latitude for self-promotion, whilst simultaneously giving an overview of some of the positive changes I and the Southend Conservatives have made and continue to make locally over the years.
How or indeed why, does one become a Southend Councillor? Having had a very long and successful carrier in the commercial and corporate sectors and as a Chartered Fellow of a professional institution, I wanted to give the benefit of my skills and services back to the town/city I grew up in and love, as a public servant, not a politician. I’d like to think that I have largely achieved this.
For me, it started before any notion of wanting to be a Councillor, with my one-man crusade to get a pedestrian footbridge installed at the A127 Kent Elms junction upgrade, announced in around 2015. The plans of the then Ind/Lab/Lib Dem joint administration, to widen the junction to its now 7 lanes, did not include a replacement pedestrian footbridge for the school children.
The safety reports and documents I submitted, along with the various meetings I had with the council, was pivotal in ensuring that the many school children attending the Eastwood schools, along with the parents and vulnerable pedestrians using this junction, got a segregated and safe route to cross the 7 lanes of the A127 without entering the carriageway.
This one event was certainly an education on civic life to someone who was busy having a career and a family and had no notion of becoming involved in how the town/city I live in is run and more importantly, by whom! So having been asked to stand, in 2018 I was proudly elected as a Councillor in Prittlewell Ward.
Following the completion of the junction upgrade in around 2020, despite repeated requests to the joint administration to take action, it was as the Cabinet Member for Transport and Highways in 2023/24, that I ensured that the very dangerous 3 lanes in to 2 ‘taper’ merge heading into Southend, which had seen numerous accidents and incidents, was reduced to two lanes straight through with the dedicated left turn filter lane added. This has now significantly increased the safety at this junction and reduced the number of accidents.
Whilst in cabinet in 2023/24, I also ensured that the hugely damaging evening 6 – 9pm parking charges along the whole of the seafront were removed. We know the significant detrimental impacts these charges have on the local business’s, the local nighttime economy and residents alike. If you wanted an evening stroll along the seafront and a bag of chips and an ice cream at around £5, it would cost you £9 to park to do it.
Whist daytime charges are acceptable to cater for the very welcome tourist trade, the evening economy is more about the residents going out for the night, enjoying and supporting the city we live in. Needless to say, Labour have reintroduced these damaging evening parking charges as soon as they got back into administration in May 2024.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen both nationally and locally, Labour view working people, pensioners, farmers, publicans, restaurateurs and businesses as their free cash dispensers to help themselves to our money as they like and have little regard for the effect and consequences of such damaging actions.
So what’s of significance on the horizon? On street residential EV charging is finally coming to Southend. This is an initiative I lobbied hard for when first becoming a councillor. I chaired the first scrutiny project for this in 2022, then approved it as the cabinet member to proceed to procurement in May 2023. Having now completed the LEVI funding and procurement process, the mobilisation of the infrastructure will start to take place this year. This is all good news.
However, the current Labour led joint administration plan to block many of the charging bays from being ‘enforceable’. This means that EV’s will not be able to access the EV chargers being installed, as a combustion engine vehicle will legitimately be able park in many of the EV charge bays and history and a plethora of data from other local authorities unequivocally shows, they will.
This means we as a city under Labour, will be putting EV charging infrastructure in, that will remain largely inaccessible and unusable for residents with EV’s, who do not have access to a driveway. This will further frustrate many residents who want to change over to an EV, to exploit their many financial and environmental benefits, but cannot because they do not have a driveway or accessible local on street charging, despite it being there!
With the prospect of local government reorganisation in the next few years, the joint administration know that things will change as the new combined authority is formed. This means that they see no point in carrying ‘savings’ (reserves) across to the new combined authority. So in true Labour fashion, they are currently burning through the city’s savings at an alarming rate to make themselves look good short term, to simply store up the financial burdens for future generations in the new combined authority. It seems some things never change?
There are also of course, the hundreds of individual resident cases we as councillors manage each year. Being able to solve residents issues on a weekly basis, is for me, the real pleasure of achievement.
So what is the message I hope you take from this? It can seem easy to judge someone you don’t know based purely on their political allegiance, but quite different to judge someone by their record of actions and achievements for the people and city they serve, irrespective of party politics.
What have I learnt as a Councillor? There are many good councillors with many different life experiences and different skills across the political spectrum and I have good relationships with many of them, and that is a good thing. We need to see far more of this in the current political discourse.
However, like all walks of life, there are some that are there for the wrong reasons, for their own agendas or just for the money and some who should be nowhere near the reins of power at all, yet sometimes succeed to it anyway! Get to know the person you are voting for is my advice.
Whilst for me, the politics is a seemingly necessary evil these days, it is possible to do many good things as a councillor. I have met many good people, I have been fortunate to help many people who needed it and have worked with many very good civil servants and for the most part, I have enjoyed the experience. Only time and the electorate will decide what happens after May 7th.
What’s that old saying? ‘Be careful who you vote for, they might get elected’!
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