Southend Liberal Democrats and photographs of Southend
Working For You Across Southend

Whether you are new to Southend or have lived here for some time, you can always get in touch with us or your local Liberal Democrat contact

at the_team@southendlibdems.org.uk

Your Ward contact

 

   
Belfairs STEPHEN CUMMINS Southchurch BILLY BOULTON
Blenheim Park PAM AUSTIN St Laurence KEV MALONE
Chalkwell CHRIS HIND St Luke's SARA BOULTON
Eastwood Park DAVE POULTON Thorpe KATIE KURILECZ 
Kursaal ALAN CRYSTALL   Victoria PHILIP EDEY 
Leigh JEAN DE TOURTOULON Westborough SUZANNA EDEY
Milton BOB HOWES West Leigh PETER WEXHAM
  West Shoebury GRANVILLE STRIDE 
   
Map of Southend City Council Wards
The City of Southend-on-Sea

The downgrading of the Southend Hospital Neonatal designation proposed by the Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

The Southend-on-Sea Liberal Democrat Group stand with other political groups that scrutinised the Southend Neonatal Unit Designation Report from the Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust of 12 March 2024.

This report proposes to reduce the level of neonatal care at Southend Hospital. They further propose to send babies that are deemed ‘Level 1 babies’ who are born at 30 weeks’ gestation or more and less than 1000g birthweight who require only special care or short-term high dependency care to be transferred to Basildon or Broomfield Hospitals.

The Scrutiny committee rejected these proposals, as not being safe for vulnerable babies and their families. The report optimistically stated that an urgent transfer from Southend to Basildon would only be 27 minutes, which strikes us as not realistic. Further, no plans are in place to support families that would have to travel from Southend to Basildon or Broomfield Hospitals, as that is not their concern.

The message from Southend-on-Sea Councillors is clear to the Hospital Trust: go back and rethink these risky proposals and come back to us with a better plan that looks after Southend residents better.

Councillor Paul Collins
Eastwood Park Ward
Liberal Democrat Group Leader
Southend on Sea City Council

Stop the Lorries!

The local Lib Dems are raising a petition to 'Stop the Lorries'. The petition strongly objects to the planned transport of earth by tens of thousands of lorries driving through Southend, Southchurch, Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness to the flood plain at the Shoebury Gunners Park Site. There the plan is to build up the land level with this material and build 214 houses on top.  Unfortunately the Planning Permission was granted so we cannot stop the building if it is commenced within the permitted period. Our petition demands that this material not be transported by road through our area, instead we think it is essential to arrange river transportation (the Gunners Park site is on the coast), or possibly train transport but that could be more complicated.  When complete our petition will be sent to the Developer, the City Council and the Housing Minister.

Below is the link to the online petition. Hopefully you will be able to simply click onto the link, but you may need to cut and paste it into the address box of Google (not the search box). One final thing, please can you tick the box for email updates on the petition site? We would like to keep everyone informed of our progress, but we need your permission in line with GDPR rules.

https://www.southendlibdems.org.uk/stop-the-lorries

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at email address: info@southendlibdems.org.uk

 

Many thanks & kind regards

James Allen

Local Lib Dems

Local Lib Dems gathering signatures for the Stop The Trucks petition

Why we need a Fair Deal for Education

Education is key to unlocking the potential of every child, but it has faced enormous strain in recent years.

The Covid pandemic did huge damage to children’s learning and mental health. Schools are crumbling and pupils' learning is being disrupted.

The Conservatives have neglected schools. Their reckless cuts and teacher shortages have let children and parents down.

We will invest in education through childhood and beyond, to give everyone the skills and confidence they need to thrive.

Giving children the best start in life


We have a comprehensive plan to restore the education system, ensuring it works for both children and parents.

We will:

Increase per-pupil school and college funding above the rate of inflation every year.

Invest in new school and college buildings and clear the backlog of repairs.

Extend free school meals to all children in poverty.

Put a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every school so all children and parents can access support. We’ve already taken steps to achieve this, with Munira Wilson MP submitting her Schools’ Mental Health Bill in January.

Tackle the crisis in special educational needs provision by giving additional funding to local authorities, reducing the amount schools pay towards a child’s Education Health and Care Plan.

Appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People so they are made a government priority.

To truly support children, we must also support parents by offering flexible working to balance work and home life. We will:

Ensure that all parents can access childcare that is flexible, affordable and fair. To do so, we will review the rates paid to providers for free hours, ensuring they cover the actual costs of high quality childcare and early years education.

Lifelong learning

Our education reforms go beyond school, to include higher education and beyond. Education and training should not be confined to young people; it should be a lifelong pursuit so everyone can reach their full potential.

We will:

Reinstate maintenance grants for disadvantaged students so living costs can never be a barrier to studying at university.

Create new ‘Skills Wallets’, giving all adults £10,000 to spend on education and training throughout their lives.

✅ Expand opportunities for young people to study, teach and volunteer abroad by rejoining the Erasmus Plus programme as an associated country.

Why we need a Fair Deal for Equality

The term ‘liberal’ is in our name because we exist to champion an open and free society.

We believe everyone should be able to live their lives as who they are, free from judgement and persecution, and with the ability to realise their full potential. Diversity is one of the UK’s greatest strengths and should be celebrated.

But in the past few years, progress has stalled. The Government has yet to ban conversion “therapy” practices, it flirts with tearing up the Human Rights Act, and it openly challenges international norms with legislation like the Rwanda Bill on asylum seekers. Too often, their language divides rather than unites.

We cannot let progress backslide. We must confront prejudice and discrimination wherever it exists.

 

Promoting equality

We will stand up for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. To advance equality, we will:

✅ Develop and implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy.

✅ Tackle institutional biases, ensuring that diversity is reflected throughout public life.

✅ Respect and defend the rights and identities of all LGBT+ people, including trans and non-binary people.

✅ Ban all forms of Conversion Practices.

Empowering all

Everyone deserves to be able to live to their full potential. To these ends, people must have full control over their lives, able to make the decisions which work best for them.

We will:

✅ Give everyone the right to flexible working and every person with disabilities the right to work from home if they want to, unless significant business reasons prevent it.

✅ Protect everyone’s right to make independent decisions over their reproductive health without interference by the state, and ensure access to high-quality reproductive healthcare.

 

Legislative protections

We must defend existing laws which offer us fundamental protections and pursue new laws to cover areas where policy is lacking.

We will:

✅ Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it.

✅ Scrap the Conservatives’ draconian anti-protest laws, restoring pre-existing protections for peaceful assembly and public safety.

✅ Make misogyny a hate crime and give police and prosecutors the resources and training to prevent and prosecute all hate crimes while supporting survivors.

✅ Place a statutory duty of care on all social media platforms to prevent well-defined harms, based on clear evidence, and introduce a Digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the rights to privacy, free expression, and participation without being subjected to harassment and abuse.

A Fair Deal For The Environment - The Sewage Crisis

We’re incredibly proud of our country’s natural beauty. From rivers to lakes, beaches to forests, our precious environment must be protected for future generations.

But the natural environment is suffering. The UK is failing to meet 17 of its 20 biodiversity targets.

The Conservatives’ neglect is evident in the sewage crisis, marked by a million sewage discharges into rivers, lakes and coastal areas in the last three years, lasting over 7.5 million hours. Meanwhile, water company executives awarded themselves £51 million in 2020 and 2021, including £30 million in bonuses and benefits.

This is a rotten deal - urgent action is needed to end nature’s decline.

We’re fighting for a Fair Deal that will deliver protections and end the sewage crisis for good.

We will:

✅ Set meaningful and binding targets to stop the decline of our natural environment and double nature by 2050: doubling the size of the Protected Area Network, the area of vital wildlife habitats and species abundance.

✅ Strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection and increase funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England.

✅ End sewage discharges by transforming water companies into public benefit companies, ban bonuses for water bosses until discharges and leaks end, and replace Ofwat with a tough new regulator with new powers to prevent sewage dumps.

A Fair Deal For The Environment - Tackling The Climate Crisis

Protecting the environment goes hand-in-hand with tackling the biggest threat to human existence - climate change.

We must limit temperature rises to 1.5°C to prevent catastrophic land loss and stop parts of our planet from becoming inhabitable. Millions already suffer from increased wildfires, floods, heatwaves, droughts and sea level rises.

The Conservative Government’s net zero strategy is failing - they’ve supported greater oil and gas production, approved a new coal mine, and failed to boost home insulation effectively.

We must get back on track and address the climate crisis as an urgent priority.

We will:

✅ Cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045.

✅ Invest in renewable power to generate 80% of the UK’s electricity from renewables by 2030.

✅ Provide free retrofits for low-income homes and tax incentives for other households to reduce energy consumption, emissions, fuel bills and reliance on gas.

✅ Create a Net Zero Delivery Authority, strengthen local authorities to cut emissions and promote community energy and ensure all new homes have solar panels.

✅ Plant at least 60 million trees a year and increase the use of sustainable wood in construction.

✅ Ensure net zero commitments are central to any international trade agreement.

By doing so, we can save our environment, save lives, and transform our economy, creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Cllr Peter Wexham

New Tory Administration Mess - Political Viewpoint from Cllr Peter Wexham in the Leigh News

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Cllr Carole Mulroney

Leigh Town Council Must Work Together - View From Cllr Carole Mulroney in the Leigh News

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Cllr Carole Mulroney

Political Viewpoint from Cllr Carole Mulroney in the Leigh News

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Cllr Carole Mulroney

Letter about Leigh Town Council from Cllr Carole Mulroney to the Leigh News

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Cllr Peter Wexham warns that since the by elections both the main parties are now ditching the environmental targets to try to get more MPs elected

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To introduce myself, I am the newly elected Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group of Councillors on Southend City Council.

I first wish to put on record my thanks to the previous leader, Leigh Councillor, Coun Carole Mulroney, who led our Group splendidly and I have a big job on my hands to follow her.

Following the nationwide local elections, I am pleased to report that Liberal Democrats have a stronger voice in local government by gaining over 400 councillors, bringing our total to just under 3,000 councillors on principal authorities.

We have 12 new majority Liberal Democrat councils elected and kept control of 17 authorities. In total 75 Councils in England and Wales have a Liberal Democrat Leader or Deputy Leader.

We also share the leadership in other cross-party joint administrations. This includes the recent good elections results in our neighbouring authority, Rochford District Council, with the Liberal Democrats gaining seats in Rayleigh and they have joined a coalition of other parties to form a new administration in place of the Conservatives.

Turning to Southend, I am proud to be re-elected as a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Eastwood, although we are part of Leigh, we still feel we are a ‘village’, and it is an honour to be allowed to continue to work for my fellow residents in our part of our City.

However, it is a shame that public transport from Eastwood / Belfairs to Leigh is so poor, and I still remain committed to bringing better connections across our part of the City. This would help employment, our community and reconnect families, who struggle to keep in touch.

There are a number of issues that families are facing in 2023, and I regard my role as a civic leader to try and promote all parts of Southend and work to bring opportunities and support to all of our residents.

In the last year I was proud to lead the opening of the Launchpad. This is a place where new businesses may start and collaborate, within the Council’s owned Airport Business Park.  The Council has insisted on the best environmentally friendly building, ensuring it meets to top rated BREEAM requirements.

I was pleased to help to lead a change to the City’s waste disposal contract earlier this year – this is different to the waste collection contract – where we are now sending our non-recyclable waste to Energy for Waste at two sites in the region.

This waste is incinerated at these sites,  cleanly and safely, to create electricity by way of turbines. The residue from this process is then collected to be used in building materials.

This change gives us two great advantages, one being that it is no longer going into Landfill, the second being that it is saving the City’s budget £2m over the next 5 years.

All the financial pressures that we feel at home, are also felt by the City Council. The Council and Councillors need to be more honest with our fellow residents and businesses and must be clear about the pressures that we are under and how we are going to cope with them.

I called on many people up to the May elections, and we were often asked, what do I pay my Council Tax for?

Well, the Council has a statutory duty to look after vulnerable adults and looked after children in our care and this takes close to 66 pence of every £1 collected in Council Tax.  Added to this, since 2010, the start of ‘austerity’,  local authorities only now receive close to 15% from Government today, compared to the grants received then.

The City Council is starting a transformation project, to bring the future budgets in line with all these pressures, and undoubtedly communities will be asked to step forward to help each other, more than they do already.

As a Liberal Democrat, I will be working and supporting our communities, as this is what we do and have done so for decades, and I offer my hand to anyone who wants to join us to help others.

Read more.

Visit: leigh-on-sea.news

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Contact us. Visit: https://leigh-on-sea.news/contact-us

Twitter: @leighonsea_news

Originally published in Leigh-on-Sea Times July 11, 2023

Paul Collins
Political Viewpoint by Southend Council’s Liberal Democrat Group Leader and Councillor for Eastwood Park Ward, Coun Paul Collins

Our 2023 manifesto for the City of Southend-on-Sea