A BUS-gate signalling the long-awaited start of the £575million Queensway scheme is set to get the green-light at a meeting next week.

Ahead of a development control meeting on Monday, councillors have recommended the plan for a new bus gate to be created on Queensway for approval.

The proposals look set to get backing at the meeting despite concerns being raised the bus gate could be used as a “cash cow” to dish out fines to unsuspecting drivers.

Southend’s Labour-led council is confident installing the bus gate signals the start of demolishing four tower blocks and creating 1,700 new homes, despite opposition councillors claiming it is just “moving roads and nothing to do with homes”.

Labour council leader Daniel Cowan said: “This is a really good piece of news and a good start on Better Queensway.

“It will secure planning permission and be a substantive start to the site and allow us to pursue the development.

“We are still working towards securing a new partner and we will then be in a better position to provide more updates.”

Mr Cowan added: “I think the bus gate will improve traffic flow for buses, I think it will help to reduce congestion and enable buses to travel through the city centre.”

The gate would be located directly west of the Victoria bridge and south of the Range, in the central reservation area of Queensway.

The buses would then be able to use the designated traffic lights to get into Chichester Road, rather than cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to the right-hand turn lane.

But Daniel Nelson, interim Tory party leader, said: “My view is a bus gate is a cash cow, the whole scheme is no more than a moving around of roads.

“There are no homes being built and if we continue to engineer congestion into our city, we will lack homes and get air pollution that will impact people living in Queensway today.

“I hope that people will not see this as part of a housing scheme but as part of a road change with no homes.

“There is no plan to build housing and as such this is just in relation to the road.”