Firstly I do not believe that the Councillors in Southend have produced these documents, they appear to be similar to a previous town centre plan where the consultancy firm involved had public consultations, one of which I attended. They had a fixed agenda and the way the meeting was targeted any local concerns were conveniently ignored so that their conclusion was the one put forward. So having confidence in this latest effort is very low.

Firstly your maps show quite clearly how much open space there is left in the Borough, and constructing 24,000 houses on that land will wipe out that space. So if the intention is to keep that land open then the only way to construct so many homes is to fill in the few brown field spaces and go upwards in tower blocks of flats. The obvious questions that are referred to in the documentation are about infrastructure and high value employment so they can be afforded.

The maps also show quite clearly that the only way to travel out of the town is to the West there are rivers and water on the other sides, there is currently a pollution issue with those Westerly going roads, if there is not high value employment locally and the homes are built to the East / Northeast of the town centre then it is obvious that the density of traffic on those existing roads will increase as people travel to their places of work.

Having reviewed the ONS statistics on population density, Southend is the highest in the South Essex region already. From personal experience, I live in one of those areas most highly populated. Over various Council administrations through many years I have seen the impact of the decisions they have taken by allowing the family home conversions to flats. It is not pleasant and the area continues to deteriorate, concentrating more housing into the existing built up areas will not provide a good life style. By building on green field sites will reduce the potential carbon capturing abilities of those areas. Just cramming more people into the borough will not provide a life style that I feel most people want.

A question, are those 24,000 homes for the dependants of the existing residents into the future or are they to encourage more people to move into the area? I do not want more people to come to live in Southend, I would like the council to get the basics right for the existing residents with maintenance of the existing road network / footpaths and other infrastructure needs. They over many years have just been left to deteriorate, the effect being that some residents believe that the authorities do not care about them. The consequences being that pavement parking destroying footpaths and rubbish just being left where it is dropped. (Some new paving slabs were put in place a month ago along my street, they are now just as cracked as the ones that they replaced.) If there is an environment to respect then perhaps there will be a happier population.

One look at the local free papers and the housing for sale pages will show you how costly it is to buy a property in Southend. The adverts are for “Luxury apartments”, even the councils promotional material refers to Luxury, the homeless folks of Southend do not have employment that pays them enough to afford those properties, that means more people make their way to Southend who can afford them. They do not come here for work, so the commuter traffic be that trains or the road networks get even more saturated.

I understand that being able to own your own home or renting is a complex issue and the human nature of greed is one of the principle causes of why the whole country has these issues. Yes I am a NIMBY as far as the whole of Southend goes. There is no desire for the density of the local population to increase by encouraging new settlers, there is however a desire for the existing local issues to be resolved and those that abuse what is already there to be reminded forcefully of their role in returning the town to a pleasant place for the rest of the inhabitants.

Another question about the 24,000 homes, is this just an arbitrarily manufactured number by central government or some locally created quantity? Why shouldn’t other areas of Essex have their population densities brought up to the same level as Southend on Sea before there is a need to uplift the figures for Southend? I have included the figures so you can see the difference, assuming that you have not already looked.
A statement in amongst the documents talks about over reliance of the High Street and retail outlets here, this is another misnomer as since the mid 1990’s the variety and number of retail enterprises in the High street has reduced to just a couple of main stream shops, they cannot support the whole town financially. This has been impacted even more by the use of online buying. A by-product of which is the large volumes of delivery vans making use of the existing road network (creating more pollution).

Just thinking about the whole concept of a Town Plan and that civil servants would take over if we did not come up with our own plan brings into question who demanded this in the first place. Probably those self-same civil servants. It does of course provide high value business for the consultancy firms involved in manufacturing the plans who probably don’t actually live in the area and experience the existing issues and will not experience the consequences if those plans are adopted.

Perhaps I should just lie back and ignore the whole thing, especially as I won’t be alive in 2050, I just want someone to listen and take notice, the congestion is awful and will only get worse with more people moving into the town.

The plan should not be about homes and housing it should be about initially getting the town back to an environment that is pleasant to live in, encouraging businesses to create local Southend based employment that pays well and an education system that provides the skills and knowledge to the youth of the town so they can progress into those local businesses. The consequences of that would be no need to bring new people into the town and the local population would be able to afford to buy their own homes locally.
The offices in Victoria Avenue was at one time an opportunity for good employment it was created primarily because there were few prospects in Southend. Those mainly Government employers then decided that they needed to move those jobs elsewhere, the consequences being that once again Southend lost valuable employment opportunities. Those offices are being converted to Flats, initially for sale to the public, it now seems that investors have bought them and are renting them out at locally unaffordable rents. This has not resolved the issue of having a home of your own, developers creating 24,000 homes will only exacerbate the issue where investors will buy them to rent out, again excluding those from the low wage economy that is the majority of Southend.

I like many of the comments I have just seen on the Facebook post from the Council also believe that any views like mine will be put into the pot that says does not like change so let’s ignore them. Once again please get the basics right in the first place and then see what is needed for Southend on Sea not for the rest of the South East of the country.
Greed, Envy, Self Interest and Selfishness will prevail. How about considering the needs of the local residents first, Southend is now full thank you very much.
I do hope that I hear that you are listening to some of what I’ve said.