Southend’s shops are dying because the High Street is surrounded by single mothers, alcoholics, drug addicts and benefit claimants who cannot afford to spend enough money.Blimey! It’s like the ‘Echo’ is channelling….well, me!
That is the view of Anna Waite, a former leader of Southend Council and chairman of the Rochford and Southend East Conservatives Association.Good luck with that. Because people go to these out-of-town shopping centres because:
She spoke out as she urged the current Tory council leadership to take action to stop Southend slipping even further behind Lakeside, Bluewater and other major shopping centres.
a) The shops they want are there,
b) The parking is usually free, and ample, and
c) There’s always security, and you never have to run a gauntlet of drunks, beggars and rowdy gangs of kids looking for trouble.
You can’t say the same about Southend High St, where the other morning I saw no less than four beggars on my way into work, settling down in the doorways of former, now abandoned, shops (Boots for one) or existing ones...
She said: “All around the town centre are runwdown properties, bedsits and hostels.Unfortunately, once an area starts to ‘slide’ (and there’s no doubt whatsoever, this has been happening to Southend now for several years) it’s very, very difficult to get it back…
“Single mums in bedsits, drug and alcohol addicts, the homeless and those on multiple benefits do not have cash to spend in shops.Therefore, when a store looks at Southend, it does not come unless it is a pound shop or something similar.
“I am not saying these people should be moved on or taken away from the town centre, far from it. I am saying we need to do something to redress the balance.”
Mrs Waite said the High Street was hampered by the number of bedsits and cheap homes around the town centre, which attracted discount pound stores rather than big brand shops.Building a brand spanking-new roof on the old Victoria mall, gutting it inside and then finding that none of the existing shops can afford the new – higher - rent didn’t help, did it? As a result, the place is still at less than 50% occupancy.
Especially not when several big stores like Next and Boots were persuaded to move in to fill those gaps, and so left highly-visible gaping holes in the High Street to be filled with the sort of tacky, fly-by-night shops selling tat that we’ve been plagued with lately.
She argued that building new apartments and houses on central sites, such as the northern side of Queen’s Road or the Queensway tower blocks, could change that.Not really. It’ll still come down to the people you get to fill ‘em…
Update: It seems the traders themselves are in full agreement with Anna! But wait! Her fellow Tories aren't! Oh, the humanity...
5 comments:
Julia,
I live in the multicultural East-End and considered moving to Southend last year. I noticed the empty shops and the beggars. It is still vastly better than where I live but it looked like it was going multicultural, ie, non-white at a rate of knots.
A few months back I came across a story in the Echo about a Council official saying that we needed a Zimbawbean community centre. He then went on to say how wonderful it was that Southend's minority population was increasing rapidly.
I looked at the Council's homeless stats and dscovered that in 2005 20% of new tenacies went on BMEs despite being only 6% of the population. I sent the Council an email, in November, asking for more up to date figures. They replied and said I would get the data soon. I didn't. I have since sent three more emails and got the same vacant promise so I have contacted the local MP Duddridge asking him to give the Council a nudge.
That was last week and I have not heard back from him yet.
I think that by now 60-70% of the 200-220 new tenacies a year are going to BMEs. And in absolute numbers 80-85%. The town is being transformed but if we could get this data out it could be stopped.
Yours
RB London
rblondon2911@hotmail.co.uk
Mr Rees-Mogg is a silly old fart at the best of times
Councils all over the place have killed their town centres. Yellow lines, wardens galore, shops driven out by high rents, and all the while employing 'chief executives' on vast salaries to drool in their luxurious offices and compose memos headed 'regeneration.'
Where I live, a northern small town with the usual pound shops and high unemployment (and one where adults loudly call their small children 'little f*ckers' in public) the council handed out glossy leaflets with an image on the front of attractive, slim ladies and unfat men on mobile phones and carrying briefcases. Not a single sausage roll-eating child or hooded furriner in sight, either.
Well this picture was a lovely fantasy and no doubt many at Council Towers (a new building dominating the skyline) felt a twinge in their expensive undies at the image they offered the world. But... it is never going to happen.
Southend may well be just another fantasy town, but I live in one of those, too.
" It is still vastly better than where I live but it looked like it was going multicultural, ie, non-white at a rate of knots."
The former government's policy of pushing asylum seekers out to coastal areas hasn't helped.
Plus, c2c is one of the better lines for bringing the central London gangs out for drug-dealing opportunities and music-event shootings.
I think you'd be advised to give it a miss. Once an area starts to go downhill, it rarely reverses the trend.
"Mr Rees-Mogg is a silly old fart at the best of times"
He certainly is, but I suspect this is a comment for another post? ;)
"...(and one where adults loudly call their small children 'little f*ckers' in public)..."
Oh, we have that in Southend too... :(
Julia,
I think we could put an end to this, if we built a political party that could persuade the majority of the local population that they were going to ethnically cleansed if they did not stand up and do soemthing about it. After all what % of Southend's pop is BME and old enough to vote? Probably less than 4% and the town is not a bastion of Leftiedom either.
I have not heard back from Duddridge yet. I am a not a constituent but I think he still has to answer my query.
RB London
PS Thinking of moving to Exeter.
Post a Comment