A FORMER leader of Southend Council has called for large town centre shop units to be broken up into smaller shops to save the High Street from rampant decline.

Nigel Holdcroft called for immediate measures to prevent more store closures in the heart of Southend, including allowing traffic to flow through it once more.

Mr Holdcroft, who stepped down in 2014 after seven years as leader, spoke out earlier this year over the council’s vision for the town in 2050. Yesterday he again called for a radical plan to be thrashed out between the town’s businesses, property owners and the council.

He said: “We have urgent problems with Southend High Street now, never mind in 30 years’ time. We should be talking about it now and engaging with local businesses to work out a strategy going forward.

“We have got a good leisure offer in the town. We should be building on that. We should encourage artisans and culture-driven independent traders and we need to be able to provide them with smaller units at affordable costs. Leigh is a smaller scale example of this.”

Mr Holdcroft added: “We need more residents in the town, then encourage businesses into part of the High Street like a small supermarket, greengrocers and butchers.

“We should consider reintroducing traffic to get people into the town. This will make people feel safer, particularly in the evening.”

The former leader said businesses are being short-sighted about the future of the High Street. He said: “The council needs to pull in property owners and tell them they can stick their heads in the sand but all that’s going to happen is all the units will be vacant, the High Street will be deserted and they will lose a lot of money.

“They still think they can achieve massive rents but we’ve reached a sticking point. You can have a certain amount of empty shops but when we have so many that creates a problem for everyone else. We have got to come up with a strategy that includes access, public transport and infrastructure but that needs to be done now or the town centre will become so dead we won’t have a choice.”