Former Children’s Centre Manager and Green Party campaigner, Kay Mitchell, is calling for assurances from Southend City Council regarding the future of family centres and libraries following the announcement of the council’s budget. With phrases like “right-sizing” and “fit-for-purpose” being used by the Labour-led administration in relation to services, Ms. Mitchell fears they could be code for further budget cuts that threaten vital community resources.

Ms. Mitchell raised her concerns about family centres, which she believes could play a critical role in preventing family crises and delivering a multi agency community based approach that responds to the communities identified needs.

“These are frontline services that provide essential support to residents,” Kay said. 

“Libraries too are more than just places to borrow books – they act as a one-stop shop for residents, offering everything from waste bags to guidance on council services. We should be future-proofing these spaces, not cutting back on them. I’d like to see them evolve into ‘libraries of everything,’ offering services like tool lending and household items.”

Cllr Richard Longstaff, Leader of the Green Group, added, “Kay’s concerns about the future of family centres and libraries in Southend are ones I share. These spaces are invaluable to the community, offering vital resources that more than justify their cost. Any proposals for cuts – or sugar-coating as ‘right-sizing’ – are simply unacceptable, now or in future budgets. Instead, we must invest in ensuring these spaces not only meet the demands of the future but expand their reach, so more residents can access the essential services the council provides.”

The Green Party has long argued for long-term investment in front-line services, arguing that cutting such support only exacerbates the issues facing the city. Ms. Mitchell’s call for a comprehensive approach is a reminder of the ongoing tension between short-term savings and long-term community health.

– ENDS –

Notes to editor:

Kay Mitchell will be asking Cllr Laurie Burton at the Full Council meeting on the 20th February the following:

Under ‘Ongoing Commitment to those residents most in need of support’ it says:

The council has commenced a fundamental review of the Council’s operational estate and front-line service arrangements including Libraries and Family Centres.

The Labour led administration currently favours the terminology of ‘Rightsizing’ and ‘fit for purpose’ but I see these as alternative words for cuts rather than purposefully developing the underutilised facilities offered by our libraries and family centres. These could be embedded with a much wider scope in the community support offer, coproduced to meet resident’s needs, wrapped around multi agency delivery and core to early intervention. The leader responded in P&R that there would be no cuts to these services, but mentioned only ‘the slipper swap’ as an offer example.

What reassurance can the council give that the review intends to ensure the broadest possible range of sustainable services. embedded within residents’ communities?

The post Southend Campaigner Questions Council’s Commitment to Family Centres and Libraries Amid Budget Concerns appeared first on South East Essex.

Kay Mitchell, who previously served as Deputy Group Leader and who was formerly a Labour Councillor in Milton ward, has joined the Green Party citing the party’s progressive and forward-thinking policies at both local and national levels.

Bringing a wealth of experience from her tenure as Councillor for Milton Ward, Kay’s decision comes as the Green Party continues to rise in prominence. In last year’s local elections, the Greens secured the third-largest vote share in Southend, ahead of the Independents and Liberal Democrats, demonstrating residents’ growing support for the Greens’ principled and hard-working candidates.

A long-time Southend resident, Kay has lived and worked in the area for over 30 years, dedicating herself to volunteering across a range of vital support services. She was also one of the founding organisers of the popular Hamlet Court Road in Harmony festival.

“This move is a testament to the values I hold dear. The Green Party represents the kind of bold ideas, commitment, and action needed to drive real and meaningful change in tackling social inequality and the climate emergency.

“For years, I’ve championed the importance of ‘quality of life’ for all and the necessity of environmental sustainability. Joining the Green Party feels like a natural progression; this is where my values align, and I firmly believe it is the only party equipped to address the pressing challenges of our time.”

Kay Mitchell

Cllr Richard Longstaff, Leader of the Green Group on Southend City Council, welcomed Kay to the team:

“We’re thrilled to have Kay join us. She’s a dedicated and tireless campaigner, always holding the administration to account, and working hard for residents. Her extensive firsthand experience and considerable knowledge will be invaluable to the Green Group as we work with our community to build a greener and fairer future for Southend.”

Kay is already working closely with the Green Team in preparation for the upcoming local elections, bringing her passion and expertise to help advance the party’s mission for Southend and beyond.

– ENDS –

The post Former Deputy Group Leader Deputy Leader Kay Mitchell Joins Green Party appeared first on South East Essex.

Green Party campaigner and former publican, James Vessey-Miller, has called on Southend City Council to consider urgent action to support nightlife and live music venues within the City.

Local venue owners fear increased business rates and a rise in other operational costs will make trading even harder, and are calling on the Council for tailored support. 

At the City Council meeting on 12th December 2024, Mr Vessey-Miller will put an urgent question to the Council:

“In the four years leading to June 2024, British towns and cities have reportedly lost a total of 480 nightclubs, averaging 10 closures per month, or two a week. It is estimated that the East of England has lost 39% of its total nightclub venues in that period.

“Since the pandemic, Southend has seen a dramatic reduction in our nightlife offering, with many of the City Centre’s venues now shuttered. The venues that remain open are facing unprecedented pressures; including noise complaints from new housing built near venues, dramatic increases in rents and rates, and restrictive licensing conditions.

“Venues like this are important for fostering a thriving city centre and play a key role in the attraction, well-being, and employment opportunities of local people. Will the portfolio holder agree to meet with me and other hospitality and nightlife leaders to discuss how the council can support our vital nighttime economy?”

In a statement, James Vessey-Miller said;

“We can’t discount how important Southend’s night-time economy is as both a key attraction for visitors and a significant employer of local people. But in the past few years, we’ve lost many of our cornerstone nightlife venues including Talk and Chameleon nightclubs, and more recently Ravens, Coco, and Revolution bar. The bars and clubs that remain trading in the City Centre now face new obstacles and challenges which could result in closure unless something is done. This could have a terminal impact on our city’s attractiveness as a destination and as a place to live, with significant impacts on our local economy.

“Venue owners have told me they’re concerned that increases in rents and business rates and more restrictive licensing conditions could make operating nighttime venues unworkable. Additionally, the council has green-lit new housing developments around the High Street which will make it impossible to operate a late-opening bar or nightclub in the city centre without receiving frequent noise complaints.

“Venue owners tell me that schemes like the Purple Flag accreditation are just window-dressing. The Council has received this award every year for 11 years, and we’ve lost eleven of our major city-centre nightclubs and bars in that same time. Most equivalent cities are seeing nightlife footfall recover to pre-pandemic levels, but not in Southend. The Council should be asking; why?

“After speaking with local venue owners, I have taken this issue to the City Council and asked that they meet with me and other nightlife leaders to address their concerns, and discuss what can be proactively done to support these businesses.”

– ENDS –

Photo credit: Jess Hawkins

Notes for the editor:

• DJ MAG: “65 UK nightclubs have closed in 2024 so far, with the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) calling for urgent, targeted support from government to help with an “unprecedented crisis”.  In the four years leading to June 2024, British towns and cities have reportedly lost a total of 480 clubs, averaging at 10 per month, or two a week.”
  Citation: https://djmag.com/news/65-uk-nightclubs-shut-2024-unprecedented-crisis-nightlife
• BBC: “The Music Venues Trust (MVT) said financial stresses led 125 UK venues to abandon live music in 2023, with over half of these shutting entirely. Soaring utility bills and an average 37.5% rent hike put the surviving 835 venues at risk, which typically secured profits of just 0.5%, MVT said. It was the sector’s “most challenging year” of the past decade, it added. Their annual report found the grassroots scene remains “significantly underfunded compared to other areas of culture”, despite contributing over £500m to the economy and employing almost 30,000 people.
  Citation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68050664
• ECHO ESSEX: ”Southend was rated fifth worst in the UK [for nightlife], despite ranking relatively well for the price of a pint, at just £3.78 on average. The city was let down by a lack of bars and clubs, with just 17.41 per 100,000 residents, well below its score of 83.24 pubs per 100,000 residents.“
  Citation: https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/20052480.southend-city-night-life-rated-fifth-worst-uk/

The post Green Party sounds alarm over ‘unprecedented crisis’ for nightlife industry appeared first on South East Essex.

The Green Party is today releasing this footage taken on 23.11.22, which shows a council worker blanket-spraying the carcinogenic herbicide Glyphosate across the promenade. This area of the seafront by the attractions is very popular with families and dog walkers, and frequently sees young children and pets playing on the sea wall and beach. Just minutes after this worker was seen spraying close to the children’s play equipment further along, one of our members had to warn families with young children to avoid the area for safety concerns. 

The local Green Party has been challenging the council over its continued and widespread use of these dangerous chemicals for years. Many residents are rightly concerned for the devastating ecological impact these substances have on our wildlife and pets, and further the documented cancer-causing health risk it poses to humans. Here we see the video evidence that the council isn’t listening. 

Our coordinator James Vessey-Miller grilled the council in a recent meeting about their continued use of these substances, and shockingly Leigh’s Cllr Mulroney responded by wrongly claiming that these carcinogenic herbicides were “completely safe”. Southend Council has claimed for years that it is pursuing a “phased reduction” of these dangerous chemicals. It insists that it only uses these chemicals when necessary, and does all it can to avoid their use when alternatives are possible. 

The Green Party refutes this claim, as we’ve seen them spraying this stuff across whole areas year-round, with no evidence of alternative weed control even being trialled at scale. We’re yet to even see any meaningful reduction on 2018 levels. We have a whole folder of evidence of the council using ride-on tractors like this to coat entire swathes of our city in these dangerous chemicals, and in our opinion, it’s often completely unnecessary. Far too often our members have witnessed council employees spraying these herbicides as a corner-cutting way of avoiding more labour-intensive manual weed control around streetlights, benches, and children’s play equipment. Shockingly, we’ve even seen the council spraying in this manner against the fences of primary schools. 

We’re publishing this video today to evidence that despite what they say in their press releases, the council’s widespread usage of these harmful chemicals is ongoing, and that they simply don’t care that they’re doing it in areas that subject our children and pets to unjustifiable risk. 

The Green Party continues to hold the council to account, and today we’re again calling on them to impose an immediate ban on the use of these dangerous Herbicides.

We call on Southend Council to do the right thing and stop the use of these chemicals.

Do you have any evidence or stories of the council using these herbicides?
Share with us in the comments below:

The post Greens Expose Council Using Glyphosate on Seafront appeared first on South East Essex.

In July this year, the South East Essex Green Party launched a petition and community campaign to save the Railway Hotel Southend from inappropriate development.

Leading members of the local Green Party submitted the paperwork officially nominating The Railway Hotel to be considered an Asset of Community Value by Southend City Council, and additionally launched a petition calling for the Council to take steps to safeguard the building. Within a few days, our petition amassed over 1700 signatures from concerned locals and gained considerable media coverage.

In an update received in October, Southend Council confirmed that thanks to this campaign this heritage building is now acknowledged as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), and is rightly protected under this listing.

Read the statements posted to the Friends of the Railway campaign page:

7 Oct 2022.

GOOD NEWS!

We have today received confirmation from Southend City Council that our application to have The Railway Hotel listed as an Asset of Community Value has been successful!

The Council has formally recognised The Railway’s huge contribution to our city as a community and cultural venue (and much much more) and has acknowledged that it is an integral part of our city’s cultural infrastructure. ACV listing now means we have another safeguard against irresponsible development, and it means that we’re one step closer to having the pub reopen for our community’s benefit.

I’d like to thank the 1600+ of you that signed our petition so far and the many of you who helped our campaign by emailing your councillors, sharing our updates, and helping us galvanise the support for a future for the pub. Without your help, it’s possible that we might have seen the pub added to the sadly growing list of great boozers we’ve lost to history.

I’d additionally like to thank the South East Essex Green Party for being the initial signatories on the ACV Nominations paperwork, and for supporting us with this campaign. Thanks also to those many councillors at SCC who also lent us your support.

SO, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Gaining an Asset of Community Value (ACV) listing means that the council officially recognises that a building has significant community value; in our case as a much-loved community and cultural pub, and it recognises in planning decisions that it should be protected under applicable legislation for this purpose only. In short, it means that the council agrees with us that the Pub should remain a Pub!

Currently, the building is owned by Heineken/Star. This ACV listing additionally means that if the brewery wants to sell the property, it is bound to notify the community of its intention to sell, and a moratorium is placed on the sale of the building, giving the community six months to arrange the finances to buy the pub at market-rate from the current owners. This would allow the community to buy the pub itself directly, and then continue to run the venue for the good of the city as a community-owned social enterprise/cooperative.

Put simply, it means that the current owners can’t just sell off the property to irresponsible developers that would just trash the place. The ACV listing gives us the safeguard that the community has a Right To Bid first. We want that option.

The Railway will now remain on this list of Assets of Community Value for five years. The current owners, Heineken/Star have the legal right to object, but we’d strongly advise they don’t waste their money. Southend has very clearly sent the message that we love The Railway, and won’t see it tarnished, degraded, or sold off.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Please continue to share your stories of how important the pub is to our community!

Just because we now have an ACV listing, we can’t become complacent. The brewery still has the ability to ruin the pub for good itself; we’ve just made it much harder for them to treat it as a disposable asset to fling off at the highest price for their shareholders’ profits.

We’re also completely aware we’d be going up against a faceless multinational’s well-paid litigation team if it ever does end up in court. We’re not particularly scared tbh, but as a community, we need to be collectively ready for that fight.

This is only the first stage of bringing the pub back into community hands. When the time comes, we need to be ready to rally our supporters to buy, and then reopen the pub. That is a LOT of work. We want to do this, and we’ll need your support.

If you haven’t already, please encourage friends and family to visit our website and sign the petition. We’re still asking Southend Council to include the Pub on its’ list of Heritage Assets, as we think the pub deserves recognition and protection for its heritage credentials too. Keep applying the pressure!

26 July 2022.

SAVE THE RAILWAY HOTEL

Please sign and share this petition to ask Southend Council to help Save The Railway Hotel, Southend.

We’re asking Southend Council to list The Railway as an “Asset of Community Value”, and to add the building to the Council’s Local List of Historic Buildings.

Please support our efforts, by adding your name to this petition now:
SIGN: https://railwayhotelsouthend.co.uk/

WHY IS THIS PETITION IMPORTANT?

Until its closure in late 2020, The Railway Hotel was one of Southend’s most prominent counter-cultural landmarks, beloved by a majority of residents from across the city. Its impact to the city, and its sad and premature loss is felt today by many – even far beyond the boundaries of the county.

The building itself bears important local architectural and historical significance to the city, on its own merits and as one of the borough’s first public houses in what is now the city centre. Its location, placed within the Banks & Barry ‘Cliff Town’ Estate (now the Milton Conservation Area), also lends further evidence to the historical significance of the building to the wider story of Southend.

Currently, the building (we feel wrongly) is neither listed on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) nor is it on the Local List of Historic Buildings. This means that there is currently no protection for this Public House in terms of conservation (architecturally or aesthetically), and as a result, there is little stopping an application of irresponsible development concluding in the loss of one of the city’s assets.

The Railway was more than a beloved local pub; it was the crucible in which an entire generation of music, art, and culture was created and thrived in Southend. Known for its stalwart support for local, national, and international musicians of all genres, The Railway was primarily a community-spirited live music venue, as much as it was a popular public house.

Beyond the bricks and mortar, its patrons, the Railway Community is a 5.5k strong eclectic diaspora of local art and music lovers that otherwise would have never shared one space. A glistening example of community cohesion, The Railway represented the very best of what Southend’s thriving cultural scene could offer, and was for decades one of the town’s (now city’s) liveliest venues. The pub gave a second home to a whole family of local artists and customers, many of which now feel bereft of a similar space in the city.

The Railway’s community engagement stretched beyond that of just a pub, as for years it proudly supported those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities through a legacy of accessible and inclusive events, and also fundraising tens of thousands for various charities through events. The pub was proudly a ‘safe space’ for LGBTIQA+ patrons and happily played home to the alternative cultural scene (by all definitions) in Southend. 
The contribution The Railway has made to our city and its story cannot be underestimated.

Sadly, despite overcoming several difficult financial periods in recent history, the Coronavirus pandemic proved too much of a financial strain on the business, and the previous operators closed to the public for the last time on 31st October 2020.

In the past 1.5 years, it had been hoped by the community that now the building has been relinquished back to the responsibility of the Brewery/PubCo, they would reopen this busy and popular city-centre pub for eager trade. This unfortunately hasn’t happened, and the building remains empty and shuttered. As it stands, the community has been given no assurances of the long-term security of this beloved institution, and we now feel the local authority should assist in bringing this venue back into the hands of the community that wishes to see it reopen.

We believe fundamentally that this building must remain a community pub.


The Railway is a cultural icon to our city, and is an asset that cannot be lost in the same ways other significant venues are. We have reason to believe that this beloved pub is at risk of being lost forever.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We’ve already asked Southend Council to list The Railway as an ACV, and to include the building on the Council’s Local List of Historic Buildings. We believe that right now, this is one of the most effective ways we have of ensuring The Railway will reopen as a community pub.

To help us save The Railway:

– Please SIGN and SHARE this petition.

– Tell everyone; help us get the word out that we need to act quick.

– Please consider writing to your Ward Councillors and ask them to support the ACV listing.

The post Greens Get Heritage Pub Listed appeared first on South East Essex.

This new space in the Victoria Shopping Centre is a brand new project funded by Southend Council and other partners. This space will run free workshops on energy saving tips, growing your own food, and bicycle repair – as well as hosting Southend Transition’s popular Repair Cafes and many more events planned. 

We think this is a wonderful initiative, and we’re pleased to see Southend Council bringing projects like this to fruition. We need more projects like this that bring environmentalism to ordinary folk, and in a low/zero cost and accessible way. 

We’re sad to hear that this great project has only three months of council-backed funding so far; so the onus is on the environmentalism community to keep the project busy with useful events, workshops, and pop-ups that will help the average person make more climate-conscious lifestyle changes.

Us Greens will be hopefully running a few workshops, and we know we’ll be attending a few other others too. 

Please pop down and support this great initiative!

The post Greens attend new Climate Hub Opening appeared first on South East Essex.

Over the past few months, the council and residents have been embroiled in an unproductive debate over car parking in Southend town centre, the associated parking charges, and what impact this will have on the town’s businesses as we recover from the COVID pandemic.

As the town’s large seafront businesses lobby the council for increasingly lowered car parking rates and the under-pressure council eyes up more locations for new and larger car parks, new insight from the Green Party suggests the obvious solutions no-one is talking about.

THE PROBLEM

No large town in the world has ever solved its congestion problems by building new roads.

Southend is no different from any of the other Victorian-era seaside towns across the UK in our challenges with congestion and parking. Towns like ours were constructed years before cars were even considered integral in town planning, and as a result, every summer our town centre is swamped with handling the many thousands of tourists that visit by car, causing innumerable issues for locals.

Currently, a significant majority of these visitors travel here in their own cars, adding to the town’s already chronic issues of congestion, toxic air pollution, and residential streets jam-packed bumper-to-bumper with cars.

Naturally, these recurring issues cause a great amount of frustration for the town’s residents, and in return, the council continually makes rushed decisions on town planning as short-term ‘fixes’ for these issues.

Previous twentieth-century suggestions to these issues involved progressively extreme road widening schemes, the loss of our green spaces to ever-larger car parks, retail parks, and roads, and the permanent dedication of vast swathes of our town to simply storing parked cars.

Despite these extreme measures, Southend still has inadequate town centre parking at peak times, a year-round shortage of on-street parking, and still suffers from the same issues the council aimed to fix in the first place.

With the recent news that the council is again considering “sunset ideas” of road widening and new car parks to tackle the issues, we remind residents that these proposals will not work, because these kinds of schemes never have.

New research from the South East Essex Green Party published today visualises how much of our town centre is lost to just parking cars.

Vast amounts of land in the town centre that could be made into affordable housing or green spaces for residents to enjoy is instead devoted to storing cars, and 20-30% of the urban road space throughout the town is lost to roadside car parking. A huge amount of the public realm is dedicated to cars, and it has resulted in streets designed not for residents, but for motorists. This has had fatal consequences.

None of the council’s previous traffic-alleviation measures has worked.
That’s because the council continues to fail to account for Induced Demand in town planning, and is failing to listen to climate science telling us we must urgently transition to low-impact travel options.

Induced demand shows that car traffic increases proportionally with increased road capacity. In other words, the easier you make it for people to travel by car, the more people will choose car travel as their main travel option, adding to the problems. Roads are made ever-wider to accommodate more cars, and in turn, the wider roads lead to more cars being bought and used.

This concept is also key to understanding the issue in the provision of parking in Southend. The more space that is found and devoted to parking for cars, the more people will travel here by car in the knowledge there’s a parking space for them when they arrive. If the council signals to tourists that our town is only car-accessible, the more we will struggle with congestion and air pollution when those tourists arrive by car. Governmental policy and our own town planning for the last 60 years have worked on the assumption that people will only travel if they can do so by car. This is fundamentally untrue.

To illustrate this, a tiny proportion of visitors to London travel by car because of the traffic, the lack of parking spaces, and the high parking charges. That doesn’t stop people from visiting London however, with most people still commuting and visiting just as often, but instead opting to go via train, a considerably lower impact travel alternative.

If we’re to tackle the many serious issues in Southend caused by excessive motorists, then we must stop designing the town treating car travel as the default.

Without a change in direction now, this problem will continue to worsen.

THE GREEN SOLUTION

To quote Field of Dreams; “You build it, and they will come.”

In the last century, we’ve reshaped our whole town around car use so it’s understandable why the unimaginative amongst us can’t see any other option. But if we’ve reshaped our town before, it can be done again.

As we recover from the COVID pandemic, we have a perfect opportunity to reimagine our streets, and radically reshape how we want people to visit and travel across the borough. In light of the climate emergency, a greater emphasis needs to be made on enabling greener travel options for every resident through sustainable town infrastructure design.

The first task at hand is to simply acknowledge that no town can facilitate an endlessly growing number of motorists. Currently, town planning assumes car travel is the default for every resident, and this has led to chronic underfunding of other travel alternatives. No wonder why a majority of residents travel across town by car currently, when the other alternatives are an expensive and unreliable bus network and a disjointed and unsafe cycle network.

We need an urgent reevaluation of who our streets are designed for.

Innovative schemes such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and ‘Mini Holland’ style traffic restrictions would reduce the rat-running commonplace throughout the town, and a borough-wide Low Emission Zone would target the dirtiest vehicles on our streets to tackle toxic air pollution.

The adoption of a 15-Minute City approach to town planning would also reshape how far residents need to travel to meet their daily needs. If a majority of a person’s needs can be met within a 20-minute walk or cycle, how many people would need to use a car daily at all? Ipswich has already committed to pushing ahead with such a 15-Minute City scheme and has announced a major investment into making services and quality of life accessible within the space of a short walk from the home of every resident, cutting down unnecessary journeys that would have been done by car. This can be achieved in Southend.

We should be aiming for greater diversification of transit options for Southend’s residents, and that begins with putting the required infrastructure in place first.

The creation of new safe cycle routes needs to be an immediate priority, and must functionally connect the town in a modern road design that prioritises bus and cycle users over car travel. New active transit corridors should be implemented for east/west travel, and fully-lit and CCTV-monitored safe cycle storage facilities should be installed at every appropriate location.

There’s already more than enough room on our streets for new segregated safe cycle lanes; and on most roads in Southend, this can be achieved without entirely removing existing on-street car parking. Many neighbourhoods of Paris and Copenhagen have parking layouts where parked cars are used as a barrier between cyclists and moving traffic, which in turn forces vehicles to travel more slowly, bettering road safety for pedestrians. Such “woonerfs” schemes already exist in Amsterdam and could be adopted in Southend.

To facilitate the new online order economy, we can also introduce cargo-bike delivery hubs across the borough, allowing for greener transportation of goods and services. These cargo bikes, in turn, would use the new cycle lanes, alleviating our roads of more delivery van traffic.

We need a new and ambitious Integrated Transport Plan, increasing the provision, reliability and affordability of Public Transport services. We need a significant improvement in the frequency, accessibility, number of routes, and overall reliability of bus infrastructure across the borough. We also need to introduce new night bus services across the town and improve the frequency and reliability of weekend bus services too.

The greenest travel option should always be the cheapest and most convenient option if we’re to encourage people out of their cars.

Bold action should be taken to make town centre shopping districts pedestrianised and car-free. Following an Oslo model, begin to replace on-street vehicle parking spaces with space for climate-resilient urban greening, parklets, and cycle parking.

And as for the many seasonal visitors; as a town with a significant tourist economy, we need to make taking the bus or train more convenient, cheaper, and more accessible than travelling here by car. Following the success of a new sustainable transport system for the town, redundant surface car parks can be developed into spaces that benefit locals; such as affordable housing, service provision, and parks. The car parking spaces that remain can be used to tackle the inadequate electric car-charging facilities that exist currently. Install and offer free electric vehicle charging points in all remaining car parks and see how quickly Southend becomes an eco-tourism hotspot and benefits from the many new visitors.

THE GREEN VIEW

It is evident from experience that only the Green Party can be trusted to deliver the radical measures needed to solve our traffic nightmares and to implement a financially and environmentally responsible solution that works in everyone’s interests, delivering the much-needed investment in low-carbon transport infrastructure our town needs.

We commit to completely overhauling our patchy and unreliable bus networks through greater partnership with the borough’s bus operators, and we will deliver unprecedented investment into cycling infrastructure, with new routes and street furniture, allowing for the swift and clean cross-town transit that our residents deserve. 

We will additionally aid our town’s taxi fleet to modernise, investigating council-backed grants for local taxi firms to invest in new green electric vehicles, giving town-centre priority to electric taxis with newly designated ranks, and by additionally making disability awareness training mandatory for our town’s taxi drivers.

This is of course only a small insight into the many significant improvements that could be made to Southend. We have a clear opportunity to make Southend an area fit for the future, and we genuinely believe that our Manifesto is the most rational, most effective, and most responsible roadmap to becoming the pioneering community we all know it can be. Like Brighton, with the kind of dedication and ambition the Greens are known for, seaside towns like ours can become global leaders. 

Meeting the ever-changing needs of our community is a task made more difficult by having a Local Authority without sufficient vision or determination to make the necessary changes to take us forward.

When elected, we will bring about a major shift in the direction of our town, and we will deliver the biggest change in council priorities in a century. 

You can read our full range of ideas on Sustainable Infrastructure & Better Transport in Our Manifesto.

Further Reading & Sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-56406943

https://www.ft.com/content/c1a53744-90d5-4560-9e3f-17ce06aba69a

https://londonlivingstreets.com/policies-that-london-councils-can-implement-now-to-decarbonise-road-transport/

http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=ENV/WKP(2019)4&docLanguage=En

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/762976/latest-evidence-on-induced-travel-demand-an-evidence-review.pdf

Department for Transport, dataset TSGB0106: People entering central London during the morning peak, since 1996 (Download: 14.5KB)

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_news/19157507.priory-park-one-way-system-beat-jams-moves-step-closer/

The post The High Cost of Parking in Southend appeared first on South East Essex.

Our candidates are a diverse and energetic group of passionate locals keen to bring Green ideas to the table. Our representatives reflect the truly diverse nature of the town, featuring frontline health workers, teachers, businesspeople, and parents in our team this year. As ordinary people ourselves, we know the challenges the town faces as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Green Party offers new and innovative solutions to many of the town’s problems, but we can only make the change the town needs with your support.

A full list of our candidates (and short bios) have been published in Our Candidates section. 

What We Stand For:

These elections are crucially important for so many reasons. 

As the first election held since 2019, residents across town have the opportunity to vote on a wide range of issues that matter to them. Southend is not exempt from suffering from the national crises in housing, education, and healthcare, and meeting the ever-changing needs of our community is a task made more difficult by having a Local Authority without sufficient vision or determination to make the necessary changes to take us forward. 

Our committed and hardworking volunteers are already hard at work in our communities standing up for residents, winning impossible victories against developers, and fighting to make Southend a better town. Many local families who’ve never previously supported the Greens are pledging support for our vision of change this year.

Whilst the other political parties treat the Climate Emergency merely as a trendy fringe issue, offering woolly and unambitious environmental targets, you know that The Greens view this issue with the seriousness and gravity it deserves, and when elected, you can trust us to instigate the biggest shift in council direction in a century. Despite every warning light on the dashboard being on, the council continues to ignore climate science and is putting our families at direct risk. Worse still, they’re supporting the big polluters causing this. 

We will lead a Green Recovery from the pandemic, with practical support for businesses and families struggling to make ends meet, and with the resolve to follow the expert science to take us forward as a town. 

AIR POLLUTION

Air Pollution in many areas in Southend is already illegally high, exceeding the safe limited as set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Traffic congestion along the A127 and A130, in addition to the pollution from the Airport, only compounds these issues. Rather than kicking the can along the road by conducting long-term studies as the Conservatives once did, and as the Labour/Liberal/Independent coalition administration is now doing, Greens would introduce radical measures to help alleviate the town’s congestion crisis, and would bring in new controls to ensure clean, breathable air for our town. Clean Air is a right, and our current administration is failing us.

OUR HIGH STREET

Small local businesses and our High Street are struggling. Whilst the Labour party believes the future of our High Street is residential, the Greens stand by our commitment to local business and believe that in order to save our High Street, we should be blockading any out-of-town retail parks that would seal the fate of our ailing high-street. Small cooperatives and businesses should be supported with concessions to business rates, and a full-time indoor fresh food market introduced to support local growers and help promote healthy eating. 

HOUSING FOR ALL

Housing is at a crisis-level in our town. More families are struggling to make ends meet, and many families are in destitution paying ever-increasing rent amounts each month. The Conservatives and Labour are both lauding the Better Queensway scheme as one answer to our town’s issues, but in reality, there will be insufficient truly affordable homes on the site for local people. We believe a sustainable and affordable housing revolution in our town is required. We need to stop building luxury high-profit commuter homes on Green-belt land and should be building truly-affordable homes on the 50+ brownfield sites across our town, and supporting new housing co-operatives that will make it happen.

LITTER

Litter is at epidemic levels across the town; Marine pollution is at such the extent whereby voluntary groups in Southend (including some set up by the Green Party) are out almost every weekend collecting the discarded trash that sullies our wonderful beaches and coastline. Greens would continue to tackle rampant littering and fly-tipping and would seek to support voluntary groups in a community effort to tidy up our town. Other initiatives such as repair cafes, and upcycling groups would also be given funding to help repair and repurpose broken goods and electronics to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

You can read our full local manifesto in the What We Stand For section.

Visit the Get Involved section for details on how you can help get Greens elected in Southend.

The post Greens Select our Candidates for the 2021 Local Elections appeared first on South East Essex.

The bright orange stickers were postcard-sized and put on highly-visible benches and signs along the Westcliff seafront area.

The statements made on this sticker are categorically false and medically harmful.

There is no medical evidence that says mask wear causes circulatory problems, bacterial pneumonia, or brain damage. Right now, a higher risk of harm to you and your family comes from you contracting COVID due to not wearing a mask and following NHS guidance.

Our team removed the ones that we found, but some might still remain. Local Green Party members have been asked to remain vigilant and remove or report any more such stickers if found.

If you find any of these stickers or similar;

Photograph it, make a note of the location, and remove if safe to do so, washing your hands thoroughly immediately afterwards.

Alternatively, please report via the MySouthend (graffiti) portal, specifying location, and attach images.

Further Reading:
https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/19006114.those-responsible-covid-conspiracy-notes-blood-hands/

The post COVID conspiracy stickers removed by Greens appeared first on South East Essex.

Southend Council has recently launched a public consultation of residents’ views on the introduction of a compulsory Landlord Licensing scheme across Southend. 

The scheme seeks to ensure that all properties let in the private rented sector are of a good standard, well maintained, and well managed, and the Council claim that “… it is a tool to deliver sustainable improvements to private rented accommodation, increasing the quality of existing stock in the private rented sector in terms of both physical conditions and management standards.”

Such schemes are permitted by existing legislation within the Housing Act 2004. In its now-open consultation, Southend Borough Council said;

“We are currently considering the introduction of a Selective Licensing scheme within parts of the borough with known anti-social behaviour (ASB), poor property conditions, high crime levels and deprivation.

It is proposed to designate the identified areas in the wards of Milton, Kursaal, Victoria and Chalkwell for selective licensing.”

The closing date for the public consultation is 11 January 2021.
https://yoursay.southend.gov.uk/selective-licensing-southend

The Green View:

The Green Party has been advocating for a compulsory Landlord Licensing Scheme in Southend for many years, and this is welcome news from Southend Council.

We believe that such a scheme is a useful tool in tackling the problems of rogue landlords and seeking to remedy uninhabitable and substandard private rented accommodation that is becoming rife across Southend.

Such a scheme allows the Council to ensure that private rented homes meet acceptable safety standards, such as ensuring that homes have a valid Gas Safety certificate, that electrical appliances are safe and in working order, and that every home has a working smoke alarm.

We strongly believe that such a scheme, if properly implemented and administered, could improve the lives and living conditions for many residents across the borough, and this is a welcome step forward.

However, we question why this scheme is not being rolled out across the whole borough, and why only certain areas in town will benefit from having this scheme implemented?

The Council concerningly cites deprivation indices, crime statistics, and Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) hotspots as the sole metrics for the targeted approach that is being proposed. Areas falling within the boundaries of the proposed licensing scheme do not follow traditional Ward boundaries and specifically highlight ‘problem’ areas across the town.

The only problem with that methodology being …

Areas within Leigh, Southchurch, St Luke’s, Prittlewell, and St Laurence have areas of similarly-qualifying antisocial behaviour problems that would be excluded from this scheme;

Belfairs, West Leigh, Leigh, St Laurence, Prittlewell, Westborough, St Luke’s, and Thorpe all have areas that (according to the council’s own supplementary data) have housing that falls into the lowest category of property conditions, but that would also be excluded from this scheme;

and Blenheim, St. Laurence, Westborough, St. Luke’s, Southchurch, Shoeburyness, and West Shoebury all have areas of deprivation equal to those areas within the scheme that too would be excluded.

So surely if the scheme was being driven solely by the metrics, then those areas identified by the council in its own research as meeting the criteria of need for such a scheme, would also be included?

The question then is, why are these areas being excluded from this scheme, and why is the council’s focus solely on the town centre wards of Chalkwell, Milton, Kursaal, and Victoria?

Could it perhaps be down to a loophole in the regulations that mean that proposed selective licensing schemes which cover less than 20% of the authority’s area, (or, affect fewer than 20% of privately rented homes) do not require approval from the Secretary of State?

Whatever the reason behind excluding the other 13 wards across town is, it will result in a disparity in housing protections for residents; with some being protected against rogue landlords and given assurances of basic housing standards, and others not, purely based on postcode.

We are concerned that a big opportunity to roll out a genuinely beneficial borough-wide Landlord Licensing scheme is being missed. If such a scheme offers the many benefits the council believes it does, why is it only being afforded to select residents?

As the scheme is being run on a cost-neutral basis, with the town’s Landlords picking up the cost for the administration for the scheme instead of the Council coffers, beyond asking the Secretary of State for approval, what is stopping the Council from rolling out this scheme to every private-renting resident across town?

We would argue that there is as much of a need for landlord licensing in Shoeburyness and St. Luke’s as there is in Chalkwell, and by extension, surely it is unfair for rented residents of areas like Belfairs or Thorpe to not be offered the same basic protections of housing safety based on calculations made on ward-by-ward ASB and Crime Statistics.

What we Believe

Our priority lies in delivering guarantees of basic living standards for all residents, and we don’t believe that where you live should result in a difference in what protections you’re afforded as a private rented tenant.

Everybody should have access to a safe, warm, and efficient place to call home. By limiting this proposed scheme to just four out of seventeen wards, a majority of Southend’s private-rented tenants will not benefit from this.

We call on Southend Borough Council to reevaluate the scope of this scheme and be bolder in its ambition. We call for such a Landlord Licensing Scheme to benefit every tenanted resident across town, regardless of area.

We encourage Green Party members and supporters to participate in the Council’s consultation and to push for parity in living standards across town.

We proudly advocate for a whole-borough compulsory Landlord Licensing scheme in Our Local Manifesto, and this is also echoed in the Green Party’s national policy:

HO523: To tackle rogue and slum landlords, the Green Party would simplify and toughen up the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), ensure local authorities dedicate adequate resources to proactively enforce it, and introduce a national landlord licensing scheme, with the enforcement of licenses operated by local authorities and punitive penalties for landlords who fail to gain a license or meet the HHSRS requirements. We would also tackle landlords converting homes into unsuitable dwellings and then obtaining a Lawful Development Certificate by giving local authorities 10 years to take enforcement action, rather than 4 years as at present.

>> You can read the Green Party’s full position on Housing here:

Further Reading:

https://yoursay.southend.gov.uk/selective-licensing-southend
https://england.shelter.org.uk/legal/housing_conditions/selective_licensing
https://www.pace-properties.com/selective-licensing-launch-to-cost-50000

The post Greens Support Landlord Licensing Scheme appeared first on South East Essex.