SOUTHEND Pier has stood forlornly in the mud down the years while bright ideas for its revival flickered and faded.

A long line of would-be white knights have come and departed. Yet there has been one consistent throughout - Tony Garner.

He has gone on believing in the future of the pier, continued to press for a spectacular development at the pierhead, and never stopped maintaining he was the man to deliver it.

Suddenly it seems as if Mr Garner's dreams could materialise.

His schemes have always hinged on the close co-operation of the pier's owner, Southend Council, and, rightly or wrongly, the council has chosen to take an arms-length approach to him.

Now suddenly Mr Garner has emerged with plans formulated in liaison with the town's planning head Steve Kearney.

In alliance, Mr Garner and Southend Council are in a position to achieve things that could never be done with the two sides at loggerheads.

The new plans show Mr Garner's ambitiousness and determination to do things on the grand scale certainly haven't drained away.

It should bring much-needed life to the pierhead, and with Mr Garner and the council in alliance, the plans might happen.

To keep appetites whetted, though, Mr Garner really does need some better artist's impressions.

The dreary set of pictures do not inspire confidence. They undermine a potentially splendid revival of the pier by suggesting something that looks like a squat 1950s tower-block at sea.