It is a little more than a year since Southend-on-Sea became a city, sealed with a visit from the Prince of Wales. A lot has happened since – the prince is now a king – but locally it is hard to tell if much in my Essex coastal home town has actually changed. “We became a city out of a tragedy,” says Liberal Democrat councillor Carole Mulroney, referring to the fact that Southend achieved city status after the murder of David Amess. The Conservative MP for Southend West was killed on Friday 15 October 2021; by Monday, Boris Johnson announced that the Queen had agreed to honour one of Amess’s long-term campaigns, to make Southend a city.
Sitting in the council chamber on that cold March day when the future monarch provided a ceremonial rubber stamp, I struggled to work out what this would all amount to. It initially sparked a great burst of energy, but reality kept getting in the way. A community organisation trying to revive a former amusement park and music hall, the Kursaal, stepped up its campaign, only to discover the building is owned by the UK arm of an American investment firm with a 200-year lease and no break clause, meaning no one but the pigeons gets to go in. Last summer a planned music festival to celebrate the new city, which promised acts including Damon Albarn and Africa Express, was postponed due to “logistical challenges”.
