Leader's blog - 7 July 2023

It is no surprise that visitors choose to come to Southend-on-Sea 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. This is part of the reason we reversed the parking charges, as Cllr Buck explained in last week's blog.

However, we also want all those visiting to look after the City, the venues, the businesses and our residents and treat Southend-on-Sea 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.

This is why we have public space protection orders (PSPOs) in place to tackle behaviour such as this, and other anti-social behaviour. We are also tackling the issues by other means; a new play area is due to open in Elmer Square, outside The Forum. The council engaged with various partners including Southend BID, Focal Point gallery and the Community Safety Partnership to find a creative solution to make the area more accessible and feel safer and welcoming, having previously been blighted by antisocial behaviour.

So, I was pleased to see that last weekend our PSPOs were enforced, with four fixed penalty notices issued to those who broke the rules. We want people to visit; we're all for fun but when the fun is ruined by those who take it too far and whose actions cause risk to other people, we must ensure the PSPO's are enforced.

Of course, the issues we're finding are not unique to Southend as a seaside town and it was great this week to meet other councillors at the Local Government Association annual conference in Bournemouth. There were a variety of different sessions and panel discussions looking at the challenges facing local government, and it was an interesting experience.

I must also mention how pleased myself and Cllr Helen Boyd are that Ofsted recognised the improvements made to children's services during their recent inspection. We still have areas which need improvement, and these will be our focus going forward, but to have the culture of children's social care recognised for being supportive and an environment where staff “thrive” is great, as this will filter down to the children they care for.

Enjoy your weekend, and if you're out enjoying the sunshine, please say hi to the council teams who are out working to make our City safe and clean.

Take care

Cllr Tony Cox, Leader of Southend-on-Sea City Council