A VETERAN councillor has spoken about his long road to recovery following a serious head injury and of the achievements of his long political career.

Graham Longley is looking forward to being allowed to drive again at the end of the week - something he has been unable to do since falling down the stairs in October and sustaining a serious head injury, from which he is still steadily recovering.

A blow of that kind, and the resulting surgery, can cause temporarily issues with memory, but Mr Longley vividly recalls the work he and others did in saving the Kursaal, which was built in 1901, and held an outdoor amusement park within its gates – though this closed in 1973.

It is the case with any building that there will always be someone out there who prefer to knock it down, whatever its architectural or historical value, and build something banal in its place.

It always falls down to ordinary men and women to prevent such a thing from happening – such as the formation of the Southend Society when the Royal Hotel was threatened in 1970 – and, in the case of the Kursaal, Mr Longley.

In an interview at his home in McDivitt Walk, Eastwood, he recalled discovering the Kursaal was under threat and how he found it absurd there was a chance of it being demolished.

He said: “In 1994 I became leader of the council in a joint administration with Labour, which was at that time led by Alan Hurst, and one of the first things I did was talk to Alan about the Kursaal because people were starting to think they could buy it, sell it off, and turn it into houses or flats.

“But I was born in the town and have always thought the Kursaal very important to us, so Alan and I went to the town clerk and told him the Kursaal was up for sale, so the council should buy it, which we did.

“Our argument was this was serious, and we want it regardless of the cost, because if we get rid of it then it’s lost forever and we would lose a vital element of our town. After that, it came to deciding who should run the place for us, and that ended up being Rowallan.”

The pub chain, which leased the building from the council, carried out a £15million revamp in late nineties. The revamp saw a bar where the current Tesco Express is, a 30-lane bowling alley, bars, a game centre, a McDonalds, and the Rendezvous casino, which is still there, as well as praise from Adventure Island boss Philip Miller.

Mr Longley, who has stepped down as a Lib Dem councillor until the next local elections, said: “There was a big evening for the opening and the whole package meant that the corner of that part of town was refurbished completely. Rowallan spent an awful lot of money and did an awful lot of work and deserve credit for that.”

Rendezvous opened at the Kursaal in 2001 with special guests Harry Redknapp, Jimmy Hill, and other sports personalities arriving in black tie on a horse-drawn carriage – a coup Mr Longley at that time presided over as mayor of Southend.

He said: “It’s often been a challenge to get people in there. There’s probably a whole floor which is empty now and the one thing which keeps it going is the casino.

“But it’s part of the history of the borough and it’s important it should stay, so we should do all we can to keep it going.”

Rowallan sold up in 2006, amid criticism from then Tory Eastwood councillor Roger Weaver who condemned the revamp as “all hype” and that the council had been “blinded by unfulfilled promises.”

Now in 2016 the building has seen better days, but site manager MFA Bowl was granted permission to give the landmark a £1.3million revamp in December. Their plans include a laser games centre in the unit left vacant by McDonald’s since 2008, a soft play area, bar, arcades, and a coffee shop.

The fact that it has survived at all is down to one councillor's dedication to the landmark Southend building.