A HUGE new event celebrating Southend's "thriving cultural scene and heritage" has been announced to mark the anniversary of being granted city status.

Businesses and residents are urged to get involved in the new 'City Day' celebrations on Saturday, March 1 2025.

The announcement comes after City Jam, the city's international street art festival, attracted more than 200 renowned artists from across the world.

Attraction - Southend Pier hosted some of City Jam's artists (Image: Southend Council)

Daniel Cowan, Labour leader of Southend Council, says: “Building more pride and having more events in our city is a priority for this administration.

“Southend is a fantastic place, and City Day 2025 will be a real celebration packed with community events and civic pride taking place on the anniversary of being granted city status and across that weekend. 

“We want the whole city to feel involved and get involved too.“

Culture - Shoebury East BeachCulture - Shoebury East Beach (Image: Southend Council)

While the council is still working on a detailed programme, Mr Cowan revealed plans for four main events across the city which aim to celebrate community and voluntary groups, the "thriving" artistic and cultural scene and the city's heritage.

It is hoped this will be supported by smaller events run by residents, businesses and other groups. 

“We are announcing this now so people can start to plan, have a think about what they might want to do on and around March 1 2025, and help us build a programme of activity for the whole city to enjoy," Mr Cowan adds.  

“We will be sharing more details shortly about how people can contact us with their ideas and get involved in City Day 2025.” 

It is hoped the 2025 event will mark the start of annual celebrations held around the date of the anniversary of our city status.  

Tara Poore, chair of the Southend City Partnership, said: “We live in a great city and have so much to be proud of, and so it is great news that March 2025 will see the community and organisations working together to celebrate all things Southend. 

 “I look forward to seeing more details released in the coming weeks and working with my colleagues on the city partnership and beyond to make it a series of events to remember.” 

The event will mark three years since now King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, bestowed the letters patent on Southend and officially turned the borough into a city. 

The decision to make Southend a city was made by the late Queen Elizabeth II, in memory of Sir David Amess, MP for Southend West who was tragically murdered while serving his community in October 2021.