Village Green

This Saturday will see the 3rd Village Green event at Chalkwell Park. This is a great cultural celebration which provides a fantastic day out for everybody. I visited the park yesterday to help hundreds of other residents generate some pedal power which will run one of the stages. If you have the time why not pop down for half an hour to do your bit. In the meantime let's hope for good weather on Saturday. This is another example of what makes Southend a special place to live and follows a succession of fun events throughout the summer.

Labour's budget games

What a surprise! - The Labour Group on Southend Council has announced that it will not participate in the confidential member discussions on possible budget cuts for next year. In every budget debate the opposition parties whinge about the fact they are allegedly excluded from the budget process untill decisions have been taken by the Administration. This year they have been given the chance to contribute at the very beginning of the process and to influence where the difficult decisions are being made but have refused to do so.Perhaps they are too busy! What is the point of electing councillors who fail to take advantage of important opportunities to represent their residents? Of course they can always repeat their tactics of the last 3 years - make no suggestions or amendments to the proposed budget and simply vote against it. So much for constructive politics! Let us see if the other opposition parties take advantage of this chance.

West Leigh School traffic plans

Proposals have been published which would be funded by KeyMed and are designed to make access to West Leigh School safer as well as reducing traffic stress in the area. They include preventing access into London Road by the lights next to the school which would allow the removal of a phase of the traffic light sequence and improve traffic flow along the A13. This works to the advantage of residents as the easier the traffic flow along this main road the less the incentive for rat running. Some residents are expressing concern so we await the outcome of the consultation with interest.

Leigh Marsh Car Parking

The new extended car parking facility on Leigh marsh is now open but I am not convinced that the charging rate of £1 is right. All that it is doing is providing cheap commuter parking and undercutting the railway car park. Whilst the charges levied by the railway are, in my opinion, ridiculously high and hardly encourage usage, it was not the purpose of the extended council car park to provide cheap parking for commuters but to ensure adequate and safe parking for leisure users. I will be pressing for the rates to increase at the begining of the day but then to reduce. This should deter communter use (or at least get a reasonable return if this persists)and provide car parking for residents wanting to visit the area for walking or other leisure purposes.

Hospice on Belton Hills

I have already raised my concerns on this blog with regard to the plans announced by Fair Havens to relocate their hospice from Chalkwell Avenue to the green belt on Belton Hills. As the plan becomes more widely known I have received contact from increasing numbers of residents who are opposed to it. Fair Havens does great work for the local community but to encroach on this important open space just doesn't make sense. I will continue to encourage them to find an alternative site which we can all support.

Lego building reaches completion

Great to see that the new university accomodation building with public multi storey car park beneath is almost finished. The car park will be a great improvement on the old Farringdon site with safe and well lit provision and pay on exit. In the meantime the Uni has excellant purpose built flats for its students. Love or hate the design (and everybody seems to fall into one category or the other) it certainly can't be missed.

Victoria Gateway - the last tree goes

I see that the conspiracy theorists are working overtime to suggest that the decision to remove a further tree from Victoria Circus was always the council's plan. What rubbish! If we could have saved the tree why would we have done otherwise? When the scheme was published it was intended to remove all trees but on the information originally received from the utility companies it seemed possible to save one, so the scheme was adjusted accordingly. Months later British Telecom then announced that if the road was built where now intended a fibre optic cable serving a substantial % of Southend would have to be moved at a cost of about £1M. Additionally the delay in carrying out the work would have resulted in the project over running and the Government clawing back a further £1-2M. The only solution was to remove the tree and avoid the cable. No choice - to save the tree would cost Southend council tax payers over £2M. Sorry that the protesters are cross that they were not given advance notice - if so they would no doubt have tried to repeat their actions at Cuckoo Corner resulting in massive costs and delay, which would once again fall to the Southend council tax payer. The scheme includes full landscaping and tree planting and the sooner it is completed the better.