Southend West is a totally urban constituency. The success it has achieved through the years at parliamentary and local authority level has been achieved by Conservative representatives at both levels (including our friends from Southend East) placing a strong emphasis on social and regeneration issues. For the past ten years, unemployment, the scourge of seaside towns throughout the country, has been successfully addressed by an energetic and caring Conservative administration which aims for high levels of employment to stimulate the local economy whilst at the same time ensuring that the elderly and deprived are also at the forefront of our priorities.

The current depression will of course affect us as everywhere else but we feel we are in a better position to withstand the knocks which are bound to come than most other urban areas like our own. For the past ten years, since the moribund Liberal Democratic administration of 1994 – 2000 we have not just listened to those special interest groups who make the most noise but have taken a hard pragmatic look at the total needs of the town and acted accordingly. Had we not acted in the interests of all the people in this way we would almost certainly have levels of deprivation which would have matched those to be found in less happy parts of the country which have become totally reliant on government handouts.

Difficult decisions will have to be taken by central and local government during the next few years because of the profligacy of the Labour government which failed us when times were good by believing their own mantra that they had put an end to “boom and bust”. They failed the British people but Southend Conservatives have not and never will let down the people of Southend-on-Sea whose local economy and employment will be our first priority.

All correspondence and general enquiries to
The Secretary,
67 Leigh Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 1JW
Telephone: 01702 472391

E-mail swca@tory.org