The Council is set to continue its major investment in Southend Pier, with a further £11.5m proposed to be spent on maintenance, repairs and major improvements over the next four years.

This is in addition to £4.2m already committed to structural works up to April 2020, and £1.2m being spent this year and next on essential structural reinforcement on the Prince George extension. This would take the investment in the Pier from April 2016 to March 2021 to over £17m.

The proposed new projects are part of the 2017/18 draft capital budget and includes £8m to reconstruct the timber outer pier head following storm damage in 2015, a further £1.5m for reinforcement works to the Prince George extension, £300,000 for pier entrance improvements and £1m to undertake a planned programme of works of bearing refurbishments to reduce the risk of future pile cap failures. The proposed investment is thanks to a properly planned condition survey programme and constant management and monitoring of the maintenance required.

Along with this vital work that would secure the long-term future of the Pier structure, the Council is also looking to continue its commitment to improve and invest in the Pier as an attraction.  As part of this, the council will be looking into options for developing the Pavilion deck, improve the entrance, and continue its review into future transport options to replace the ageing Pier train. 

Ann Holland, Executive Cllr for Culture, Tourism and the Economy, says: “The Pier is an iconic world famous landmark and the jewel in our crown.  

“Many people will not realise the millions of pounds that are required each and every year just to keep the Pier open and maintained. This is by far and away the most challenging and demanding structure that we have responsibility for, and vast amounts of unseen work are required on a daily basis to keep it running and keep it an attractive place to visit and spend time.

“This proposed investment does a number of things. It ensures the future of this historical and listed structure, ensures that it remains open and a popular destination, and also looks to the future, with work to be done looking at what can be done on the pavilion deck and at transport options for the future.”

In addition to the multi-million pound Pier investment, it is also proposed that £50,000 is allocated to provide more commercial beach huts, a small fleet of rickshaw type bikes for visitor use and a new shelter on City Beach.
 
The pier investment in numbers:

2015/16 to 2020/21:

Structural works to Pier stem - £4.145m
Prince George extension - £2.743m
Timber outer head programme - £8m
Condition programme - £1.985m
Other Pier enhancements - £750K
Total investment - £17.623m
 
New investment in Southend Pier:

2017/18 - £1.375m
2018/19 - £6.425m
2019/20 - £3.250m
2020/21 - £500K
Total new investment - £11.550m

Southend Council is encouraging local community groups to help mark the 125th anniversary of the borough by applying for council funding to help kick start cultural projects.
 
Individuals, and local arts, heritage or sports groups can bid for up to £1,000 during the celebration year, with £20,000 in the total pot.
 
By gaining council funding, successful groups will then be able to access and apply for bigger grants that are available, but which require match funding.
 
Ann Holland, Executive Councillor for Culture, Tourism and the Economy, says: “We want the local community to feel a real part of this special year, and so we are providing a small working fund that will allow groups and individuals to access bigger funding grants out there
 
“By offering this financial support we hope we can get local groups to apply for more lottery funds and lever the larger grants from organisations such as the Arts Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Active Essex.
 
“We are looking to support a range of community led projects that will not only help celebrate our 125th Anniversary, but will offer something diverse, exciting and engaging to local people.”
 
The application period is now open and will remain so until the funding has been allocated.
 
Applications can be made online and will need to explain the project outcomes, their match funding request and key contact information.
 
For further information and assistance, please contact Chris Mellor, Cultural Strategy & Development Officer on 01702 534318, email:chrismellor@southend.gov.uk or visit www.southend.gov.uk/125years
 
Background to 125 years

On Friday 5th August 1892 Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria signed the Royal Charter that incorporated Southend-on-Sea. On the day the charter was signed Southend had a population of 13,000 residences with a rateable value of £82,000.

Incorporation Day was held on Wednesday 19th September 1892, this was the day that the official letter and charter document from the queen were delivered to Southend from Osbourne House.  The official messenger arrived from London to be met by the Lord Mayor of London, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Essex, Brass Bands, and the Southend Lifeboat which had been specially taken from the water and placed in a wheeled cradle to parade through the town.  The parade made its way down the High Street and then along the pier to the pier head.

Upon reaching the end of the pier a lunch was held, during which Thomas Dowsett became the first Mayor of Southend, the charter document was handed over and Southend became the newest town in England. To commemorate the occasion of the charter the 1,743 school children registered within the new borough were each presented with medals. A tea party was held for them in a large marquee at the site that later became Whitefield Road.
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2017 will mark 125 years of the incorporation of the Borough; in addition this year will also see the centenary of Priory Park, gifted to the borough by R A Jones in 1917, and also falls within the 4 year centenary commemoration of World War 1. 

Expanded secondary schools, a new care campus for the elderly, and investment in the Pier, parks and car parking improvements top the funding list as Southend Council's draft capital budget up to 2021 has been revealed.

In addition to over £125m already in the capital budget committed to important projects, £59.1m of funding has been identified for a number of existing and new projects up to 2021, including:

• £20m on a major secondary school expansion programme, following recent work to expand many primary schools.  An estimated £10m is expected from central Government funding, with a further £1m expected to refurbish maintained schools that require work. This is in addition to £8m identified last year for the conversion of PROCAT and Wentworth sites and partial expansions of other schools;
• £11.5m new investment in Southend Pier, including £8m to reconstruct the timber outer pier head, and an additional £1.5m for reinforcement works to the Prince George extension;
• £9.5m for the redevelopment of Priory and Delaware residential care home and the Viking Day Centre for people with a learning disability. This is in addition to £2m previously identified in the current capital budget;
• £5m to look into creating additional car parking capacity at sites south of central Southend, and £0.5m to improve parking signage;

Cllr John Lamb, Leader of the Council, says: “Despite the continued central funding cuts, we must be bold, ambitious and invest in our Borough to ensure that we advance and prosper in the future.

“We are therefore investing significant sums in essential things like secondary school places, ensuring that our famous Pier is safeguarded, maintained and improved and investing in plans to look after our elderly and vulnerable through developing new facilities.

"We also continue to fight for external funding, and have had many successes in securing external funding for important local projects.

“We have also listened to local traders and are proposing major investment in creating additional car parking spaces in the central Southend area and improving signage and guidance systems.

“We are also ensuring that we remain a modern business and workforce, by investing in ICT and software improvements and a number of smaller but equally important projects.

“Wherever possible these projects will bring income into the council or just must be done.  Despite the austere times this gives us an impressive capital budget to make a difference to important local facilities and infrastructure and shows that we are open for business and here to do the very best for local people and businesses.”
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Further proposed projects include:

• £6.2m to continue the completion of the Decent Homes programme in 2020/21, including kitchen and housing modernisations, and carry out energy efficiency and health and safety works funded through the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) major repairs allowance;
• £1.3m for ICT business transformation to enable more efficiencies to be made, streamline services and enable future revenue savings to be made
• £1.2m on core ICT infrastructure and software improvements that are vital to ensure the council remains a modern and productive business;
• £0.7m for theatres and leisure centres;
• £0.5m to develop and improve car park signage for the whole Borough and introduce new signage, particularly to promote alternative seafront car parks;
• £0.4m for a major CCTV upgrade to digital cameras;
• £0.25m for a new ‘wheeled sports’ facility in the central Southend area to be developed between 2018 and 2020. This will be for skateboarders, bikers and scooters;
• £0.25m to deliver short term measures to help deal with extreme rainfall events and plan for the medium and longer term;
• £0.25m to look into the feasibility of wave and tidal energy on the pier, drainage sensors and solar PV and battery energy;
• £0.2m for play equipment and park furniture;
• £50K to provide new commercial beach huts on the Pier, a small fleet of rickshaw type bikes for Pier visitors, and a new shelter on City Beach;
• £50K for new doors and security improvements at the Southend Travel Centre;
• £45K to replace handrails along the Cliffs area.

The £59.1m of new funding will take the approved capital programme for 2017/18 to 2020/21 to £185.8m, of which £58.8m of this is expected to be spent in 2017/18, £61.2m in 2018/19, £49.6m in 2019/20 and £16.2m in 2020/21. External funding accounts for £58.2m of this.

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has unveiled its draft revenue budget for 2017/18 which shows how the council must bridge a budget gap of nearly £13m.

This follows the news that the main grant the council receives from central Government will decrease again in 2017/18, this time by £6.7m (31% reduction) to £14.7m. By 2020 it is anticipated that the council will receive no core grant at all and will be reliant on council tax, business rates, and fees and charges as its main sources of funding.

As part of the £13m budget gap, the council must invest £3m into services to deal with ‘pressures’ including £1m to deal with the implications of the national living wage, £500,000 to care for an ageing population that need council support, £400,000 to help children with learning disabilities move into adult social care, and £600,000 for added demand and cost pressures in children’s services. An additional £1.85m will also be invested in one-off essential projects.

As a result, the budget proposals identify £6.921m of departmental savings plus £0.581m from Public Health. In addition, council reserves of £2.8m will be used to offset the reduction in business rates and smooth the council’s budget gap over the next three years.

Additionally council tax will rise by 4.99%, with 1.99% for general use and 3% being levied to be spent specifically on adult social care.

However car parking charges will be frozen, and in some cases reduced. Savings will be made across the council’s three departments through a series of contract renegotiations, service transformation projects, increasing income in various areas and innovative projects such as energy efficiency work that will start to see major savings bear fruit in 2017/18.

Cllr John Lamb, Leader of the Council, says:  “Every year setting a balanced budget gets tougher and tougher. Our central funding grant continues to fall significantly, whilst the numbers of people needing our help and support continues to rise significantly. This means that we have to continually make some hard choices that enable us to make the significant savings required but continue to do the basics and most importantly look after and protect our most vulnerable people.

“We must raise council tax by 4.99% or around £1.14 a week which includes the 3% social care precept (69p a week) which is ring-fenced to help fund our social care services. In total this is an annual rise of £59.66 for a Band D household.
 
“I would much prefer to announce a council tax freeze but central Government cuts and the financial situation have made that impossible.  Even with the rises and savings that we are announcing, we estimate that after this year, we will still need to save £695,000 a month or £32,000 per working day over the next three years (£25m in total).
 
“However despite all of this, we are still investing almost £5m into services, with £3m to deal with increased pressures we are facing in areas like adult social care and child care, and an additional £1.85m for one-off investment over the next few years in a number of essential projects such as developing our energy efficiency work, investing in reducing the number of children being taken into care, and delivering the children’s services improvement plan.
 
“Looking to the future, we will need to increasingly focus the delivery of our services in a more targeted way and to those who need our help, and we will need to adopt this approach in tailoring our statutory services too. As we move forward we will reposition ourselves as a council to help the community, its residents and businesses take personal control over as many factors affecting their lives as possible.”

Savings are proposed to be made across the key spending areas as follows:

• Department for People - £3.960m
• Department for Place - £1.971m
• Chief Executives Department - £0.990m
• Public Health - £0.581m

The full list of the proposed savings can be viewed on the council's website.

The proposals mean that up to 10.4 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) posts will be deleted. Of those, 8.4 are currently vacant (81%). In addition there are a number of transformation projects within the People Department which have the potential to displace staff. Once the transformation plans are fully scoped, the appropriate formal staff consultation processes for these areas will also take place.

Employees in the affected areas and the trade unions have been fully briefed.  As in previous years, voluntary redundancy and possible redeployment opportunities to any council vacancies will be highlighted within the Council’s Talent Pool system, helping to keep the number of compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum.

Councillor John Lamb, Leader of the Council, concludes: “We try to minimise the impact on our residents, businesses and staff, but budget reductions inevitably have an impact on these groups.  Unfortunately job losses are inevitable as staffing is our biggest cost, but wholesale redundancies have and will always be avoided where possible and it is pleasing to see the number of posts being deleted this year are much lower than in previous years. Where staff are affected, I am committed to ensuring that the right support is in place.”

The draft budget will be considered by the council’s cabinet next week (Thursday 19th), consulted on and go through the council’s scrutiny committees, with the final budget to be discussed and approved at Full Council on Thursday 23rd February 2017.