What has Renaissance Southend ever done for us?

Some people believe it amounts to little more than pipe dreams which never come to fruition and lots of colourful, computer-generated images for glossy brochures, blueprints and strategies.

The criticism is something the company’s chief executive, Mike Lambert, is acutely aware of and which he is keen to address.

On the company’s fifth anniversary, he wants people to know all about Renaissance Southend’s concrete achievements and to justify its annual budget, of about £900,000.

Finally, he insists, things that have been talked about for years are starting to happen in Southend.

This year, £25million of major work to improve the infrastructure of the town begins.

This involves the £7.6million reorganisation of Victoria Circus junction and the £7million City Beach scheme, both of which have already started.

Later this year, there is the £5million Cuckoo Corner work and the £5million improvements to the Progress Road junction.

This week saw the £1.8million revamp of Warrior Square Gardens get off the ground and last week Renaissance Southend confirmed it had secured £600,000 funding for the new aeronautical academy at the airport.

These projects are all either funded by the Government or private sector cash. So what exactly has Renaissance Southend done to smooth the way?

From the north of the county, Mr Lambert has lived and worked in Essex most of his life. His background is in planning, and he has worked in both the public and private sectors.

Over the past five years, he mentions some of the achievements of Renaissance Southend.

“The £25million public realm and infrastructure project is a huge achievement,” he said.

“Getting the university into the town has been a key achievement and the expansion of the college.”

Mr Lambert also spoke about the university’s Hollybrook Development, in London Road, and getting the private sector to invest in the Palace Hotel and Southend Airport, now leased by the Stobart Group.

“The airport will be an economic driver of the town,” he adds.

But wouldn’t many of these projects have gone ahead if Renaissance Southend didn’t exist?

Mr Lambert said: “Some of them would, but some of them wouldn’t have had as much funding.

“I don’t believe some of the projects would have happened at all.

“It was difficult to secure money for the public realm projects, such as the academy at the airport, where we brought partners, like Prospects College, together to secure funding.

“We’ve also been influential in helping to secure funding for the new car park at London Road.

“We are not necessarily doing these projects ourselves, we are helping partners to deliver the projects and add to what they’re bringing to the table.

“We aren’t saying a company like Stobart wouldn’t have come to Southend without us, but we are helping.

“We provide a detailed case, make the design work and the feasibility.

“It gives our partners confidence this is a deliverable project.

“We are agents for the council who are out there working the system to get resources.

“We make the case to get a fair share and, in many cases, more than a fair share for the town.

“The small team here gets the best for Southend, which is getting good value for its investment.

“Our board members from the private sector give up their time freely.”

Mr Lambert explained the money secured for the town could have been spent elsewhere in the Thames Gateway, or further afield, if Renaissance Southend had not argued why it should be spent in Southend.

He said: “Additional money is coming into the town as a result of Southend’s role in Thames Gateway and our partnership saying what should be down here and what the priorities are.”

One accusation levelled at both Renaissance Southend and the council is projects seem to be talked about for a long time and little gets done, with the pier often mentioned in this respect.

Mr Lambert said: “You can’t do everything at once. It’s a ten to 15-year plan.

“We are working through the priorities and projects to help the town.

“There’s been lots of planning and preparation.

“We are now five years in and seeing the fruits of all that work.”

He admitted it had been a challenging couple of years with the recession and there have been disappointments over projects that fell through or funding which has not appeared.

Mr Lambert said: “We’ve had to fight for our funding over the past 12 months.

“We haven’t got everything, but relative to other places, Southend has been really successful in securing funding.”

He mentioned the millions of pounds promised by the Government’s Learning and Skills Council for South-East Essex College and the university being withdrawn and the failure to win the £4million Seachange funding to redevelop the pier.

“So there’s been more money than we hoped for from some pots and less from others,” he said.

“But we are trying to get more private investment to compensate for the fact there won’t be as much public money in the next few years.

“One area we’ve struggled with is the delivery of town centre housing, because of the state of the property market over the past two years.” Another Renaissance Southend project which fell victim to the recession was the Marine Plaza scheme for flats and shops on the seafront, while the development of a new village on Shoebury’s New Ranges was scuppered by the Ministry of Defence.

With the prospect of big cuts to the public sector, Mr Lambert anticipates the Thames Gateway – the biggest regeneration scheme in western Europe – will see some scaling down.

He said: “They’re will almost certainly be some sort of review across Thames Gateway.

“We have to be realistic and honest about that. But there’s still a job to be done.”

Mr Lambert and his colleagues are nevertheless upbeat about the future and the positive impact they can have on the town.

Future projects he mentions are extending City Beach and pedestrianising part of London Road in the town centre.

He also envisages improvements to those other “pinch points” on the A127, the Kent Elms corner and the Bell pub junction.

“Of course, this is subject to us being able to make case and get the funding in place,” he said.

“We’re trying to make people confident the town is moving forward and saying this is a town worth investing in.”