Southend Council to spend £250,000 on more consultants (From Echo)

Southend Council to spend £250,000 on more consultants

1:41pm Friday 16th May 2008 in

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PLANS to spend £250,000 on yet another study of Southend town centre have come under fire from opposition chiefs.

The proposal is to create a town centre action plan to help regeneration using £650,000 of Government business grants.

It will be considered by cabinet members at a meeting on Tuesday.

The plan is aimed at providing developers with more information about the planning process.

When council leader Nigel Holdcroft was asked whether this was a job for Renaissance Southend, he said: "The Renaissance Southend masterplan looks at the area overall and in more of a broadbrush way.

"With the area action plan it would look at the specific areas around the town centre more closely.

"It will also put the council in a much stronger position to resist what we consider to be unsuitable planning applications.

"We have the money available from the Government and this seems to be an eminently sensible way to spend it.

"There will be a considerable amount to do in producing this document which will involve public scrutiny and discussions with all those involved." However, Independent group leader Martin Terry said he was concerned that once again a large sum of money would be spent on bringing in outside consultants.

"We have all these interim managers in the council who are like consultants and don't know anything about the town.

"If we are looking at what should be done in the town centre area, we should be asking local people and not outside consultants all the time."

Liberal Democrat group leader Graham Longley agreed there was a problem with consultants, although something needed to be done to sort out the town.

He said: "It is still a mess and needs to be looked at more closely. I am against involving consultants as I believe the best people to make decisions about the town centre are those who use it."