Council Leader’s Message

City Council Leader’s Message by Coun Tony Cox. Why Southend is THE tourist destination – By Coun Tony Cox, leader of Southend City Council

IT is no surprise that visitors choose to come to Southend for a day out as opposed to other seaside locations.

We’ve the quaint fishing village feel of old Leigh through to wide openness of East Beach and the bright lights and arcade seaside staple along Eastern Esplanade and City Beach.

Add in the fun of Adventure Island, the history of the world’s longest Pier and military kudos of the Garrison and you’ve got a location steeped in history, interest, fun and memory-making.

And it’s no wonder visitors flock to Southend, especially when the weather is nice. And it’s great for us as a City, great for our local economy and seafront businesses, who thrive off the extra trade. We want visitors to spend their free time in Southend and enjoy themselves with their friends and family.

With the launch of Herd in the City over the summer months, raising money for Havens Hospices and sponsored by the council (along with many others), the elephant trail is yet another reason for people to enjoy a fun day in our City.

But there is a caveat. You may have seen the newly launched singing bins on the seafront – this is the most recent innovative way to encourage people to dispose of their litter correctly.

We want everyone visiting to look after the City, the venues, the businesses and our residents, and treat Southend with respect.

We don’t want people leaving their litter on the beach or dumping it next to the bin when the bins are full on a busy day. We want them to find another bin, if they can, or take their rubbish home.

We don’t want people lighting barbecues on the beach and putting the safety of others at risk by heating up the pebbles or the sand or damaging picnic benches with disposable barbecues.

We don’t want people then dumping those barbecues in the full or overflowing bins and risk starting a fire.

We want people riding jet skis, speed boats or other watercraft responsibly, so they don’t endanger children and families cooling off in the estuary’s high tide. We don’t want noisy and reckless driving along our seafront, which can wake up residents and cause possible road accidents in our busy, built-up residential streets.

We have public space protection orders in place to tackle such behaviour and we will use those powers if we have to. But we’d rather not. We’d rather trust our visitors to behave appropriately.

Teams at the council, including for example the pier and foreshore, community safety, enforcement, regulatory and highways teams, to name a few, work hard with our partners such as Southend BID and Essex Police, to make sure the City is safe for residents and for visitors.

Recently our regulatory teams seized illegal vapes and tobacco products removing them from the shops of Southend, and successfully prosecuted a landlord and associated companies, who were taking advantage of residents with overcrowding and unlicenced properties.

Everyone in Southend deserves to feel safe. Everyone also deserves to be true to themselves without fear of criticism. It’s an important month for our LGBTQIA+ community as Southend celebrates with Pride week. It has been the perfect opportunity as a community to celebrate our choices, differences and preferences.

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