The Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier

Welcome.

Welcome to my blog. An entirely new venture, setting out into the cool waters of local politics like a newly christened liner. Hopefully not the Titanic. All aboard and prepare to make sail.

My intention with this little piece of online real estate is to shine a light onto the town hall goings on of this fair seaside town. After all, as the saying goes, people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.

And are you happy with your local government, people of Southend?
But no mustachioed mask for me. I take as my sigil Southend’s most famous landmark; its pier. The longest pier in the world, and as Sir John Betjeman once said:

“The pier is Southend, Southend is the pier.”

Ironically, you can’t actually see the civic centre from the pier. But you can see the impact of the policies debated and decided there. I firmly believe that government can do one of two things. I can stand as silent sentinels as rot sets in, and wastes a place and a community away to nothing.

Or it can shelter that community, support and guide it into a flourishing prosperity with the gentle hand of the gardener.

And whose responsibility is it to keep the gardener to his brief, to keep local government going down the correct path? Who guards the guards? That task falls to us, my fellow citizens. And that is what I want this blog to be. A small contribution to the larger debate to make Southend the town that we all want it to be.

But enough philosophising. Time to get to work.