THE man who used to be in charge of housing at Southend Council believes the Queensway estate towerblocks should be pulled down as part of mass regeneration plans.

Mark Flewitt, who was councillor responsible for housing in the previous administration running the council, raised concerns about the towerblocks years ago and says it is “unfair” to keep residents waiting.

Yesterday the Echo revealed how the council is planning to redesign the estate to include 1,000 homes in what has been dubbed the “biggest and most exciting” regeneration project the town had seen.

Announcing the plan, David Norman, who has been councillor responsible for housing since the joint administration took power in 2014, said “hand on heart”

a decision had not been made on keeping or demolishing the towerblocks.

But Mr Flewitt, Tory councillor for St Laurence ward in Southend, said: “The council seems to be in a mixture of fantasy and vagueness.

“Plans were firmyears ago, and our former leader Anna Waite would have torn them down herself if she wanted to.

“I think they have to go.

They are very Sixties buildings and the council should not replicate them.

“Residents are tarred with the same brush and that’s wrong, but this is what happened when you read about something bad happening in one of the blocks – it makes people not want to go there.

“But it is unfair to keep residents waiting.

They need to open up dialogue with other members of the administration, too.”

The council announced its ambitious plans after spending £150,000 on a year of research.

As well as more than doubling the amount of homes from 417 to 1,000, the council also wants to better connect Southend Victoria rail station to the Victoria shopping centre and fill in the Queensway roundabout to create a better crossing for people to the town centre.

It wants to build a tunnel under the new crossing, make more of Porters and All Saints Church on the estate, and put an extra lane in Chichester Road from the Queensway dual carriageway to Southchurch Road.

Speaking about the proposals, Mr Norman said: “This is the biggest and most exciting regeneration project Southend has seen.”

He said a decision on the future of the blocks would be likely in the coming months as the council does more research.

A survey of the blocks found that they were in neither a brilliant, or terrible, condition.

Not all of the blocks could come down, if the council goes down that route.

If they are kept, they would be refurbished, and the council would try to rehome council house tenants on the site.

Despite other Conservative concerns, Tory David Garston, who is on the housing working party at the council, has welcomed the plans.

He said: “I think the scheme could be really good.

“I’m keeping an open mind, a new construction could be good, but equally so could refurbishment.”

Proposals given a cautious welcome from residents

PROPOSALS to regenerate Queensway have been greeted with cautious optimism by residents – who want to know more about the details.

A meeting about the plans was held for residents at the Storehouse centre in the estate on Wednesday evening.

Mike Smith, 66, of Malvern flats, said: “I asked whether the new buildings would be tower blocks or low-rise blocks, but unfortunately no-one knows at the moment.

“The meeting was mostly about reassuring people they could stay in the estate, which is what most are worried about, but I’m a leaseholder, rather than a tenant, and it’s not clear what’s going to happen to us yet.

“They might do a straight swap, which is what I would prefer, because I’ve been here nine years and I don’t want to move.”

David Black, 40, also of Malvern, added: “From what we were told, it sounds like half of the flats will be owned by the council and half private, which is all very well, but what I would be interested in is whether they segregate this or mix it.

“If they don’t mix, we end up with the same issue, which is a sense of animosity towards this whole estate – which is not just the buildings, but the people living here too.”