CAMPAIGNS
Campaigns
From events to community campaigns, Project Southchurch has been promoting the area. Our aim is to celebrate the area of this new City, we aspire to make it a better place to live, work, learn and relax in. At times that means working with other parts of the City of Southend across multi agencies.
Hands Together
Hands Together, Southend Against Hatred. Although this campaign is an original idea by Project Southchurch, we are simply the facilitators, it is without doubt a community working in partnership. We are grateful to be joined, in this banner promotion, by our friends South Essex African Caribbean Association.
Our original idea was to create a piece of street art on hoardings in sight of iconic buildings on Southend seafront. Local students and dignitaries would then be able to sign the hand prints incorporated in the design, created by local artist Karl Sims. We, however, went ahead without the correct agreement and with the landlord reluctant to give retrospective permission we had to paint over the original idea.
It was a setback, but out of adversity comes inspiration. We came upon the idea of putting a similar design onto a banner and inviting organisations, businesses & residents to sign it. It immediately became accessible to a wider audience and far more poignant.
Signing the banners is a symbolic act of defiance to those who wish to divide us through hate and terror, following the murder of Sir David Amess.
To show our strength through unity, that tolerance and diversity runs through the very heart of this city, Southend.
It also spotlights the positive actions of a community together, through the haze of negativity that appears to be the perception of many today.
The banners belong to the City of Southend, to the people whom Sir David championed so tirelessly. This City has so much character, creativity and ambition it’s time we showed others our determination and our togetherness.
The banners made a small tour during City Week. Visiting Leigh Markets, Global Community Day, One Love Soup Kitchen, Southend United Youth Programme, St Marks, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly gig at St Marys, FrostBite Festive Market in Southchurch and many more venues.
It has been signed by local faith groups, politicians, residents, organisations, emergency services, dignitaries and many more. The signatories’ illustrates how broad the diversity of Southend is and we should be very proud.
Our gratitude to Southend Borough Council for adopting the idea and helping us deliver a campaign that reaches more people. We are thrilled it will be part of City Week and very much look forward to the art project connected. Local education, faith and community groups will be invited to create banners with their interpretations of tolerance and unity, to be displayed around the City. We are delighted that Focal Point Gallery are the lead on organising this project.
Part of the Hands Together campaign, is to work with local agencies and organisations to identify sites for more Hate incident Reporting Centres (HIRCS) and to train more Hate Crime Ambassadors. We are delighted to work with Essex Police, Southend Council and others in our aspirations to achieve this.
The Hands Together Banner is accompanied by a LightBox, created by 3DFila Print in association with Sam Duckworth and Southend City. Both banner and LightBox are attending City Week events.
Hands Together Unity.
The purpose of the Hands Together arts programme was to unite young people and bring them together to create their perceptions of Unity.
We were thrilled to partner the Song School in Hands Together 23 ‘Unity’.
The creation of a song and video by their students aged between 11 - 16 was simply stunning. They were involved from creation to production and the the whole process in-between.
Thank you also to c2c, The Art Council England, Music on Sea and The National Lottery who help fund this initiative.
Southend East Station.
We are delighted we have got to the point where the prospect of Southend East Station become fully accessible station.
The vision of a new bridge within the station is close and we are working closely with C2C and Railtrack to facilitate a public consultation, residents will be able to see and ask about the significant changes.
It will no longer mean that those with mobility challenges will no longer have to travel further up the line when travelling East to come back down so you can alight from the train.
The remedial work has started and is due to be completed in late 2025 early 2026.
All Seven Miles.
Part of the promotion of the Project Southchurch area and in general the East side of Southend is to encourage visitors.
The transformation of our retail areas through our Trade and Social Cohesion Zone and other initititives is an important ingredient.
Working with Southend Tourism Partnership and Visit Southend is vital.
We need to use All Seven Miles of our wonderful coastline. There is a major perception of our city is that it’s just about theme park & amusement arcades, kiss me quick approach. We are so much more than that.
Home to history, beautiful award winning parks, award winning beaches, walks, water sports, boutique guest houses, quality hotels, fantastic restaurants and much more.
The Project Southchurch area has the only two restaurants actually on the beach. Don’t believe those who want to protect their interest by rubbishing other parts of the City. We’re proud to be part of EastQuarter, we have so much to offer.
360 DEGREE TOURISM
360 Degree Tourism is a concept that will allow us to highlight the hidden treasurs that we have in the EastQuarter.
Once we have encouraged people to use All Seven Miles of our coastline, that will ease over crowding on central beaches, we can promote the areas they come to.
In the EastQuarter we have many resturaunts on the esplanade, 2 actually on the beach, we have some great retail areas with more choice of food and drink and great independent shops. We have magnificent, historic, buildings in the area. Southchurch Hall, Holy Trinity Church (The original site of the South Church). We have, fantastic parks to relax in Southchurch Park & Southchurch Hall Gardens and Southchurch Park East for conservation.
Southend is so much more than ‘Kiss me Quick’ tourism. We can offer varied entertainment, heritage, history, conservation and so much more.
Come to the EastQuarter and ‘Discover the Possible’.
Southchurch Park Pavilion
The cricket pavilion in Southchurch Park was demolished early 2024.
We want to see the pavilion relocated within Southchurch Park. Any new building must be sympathetic to its surroundings and honest to the history of the previous pavilion. It must remain for the community.
We also hope that any new premisses will be used for the local community, for educational and art purposes. We would also like to continue to be facilities for sports clubs to use as well as promote new sport to the area.
A centre that is central to the community and used by local groups to promote social interaction and wellbeing.
We also would like to see a sensory room for those who face challenges, giving them a safe place and freedom to explore. We are continuing our focus on the cricket pavilion in Southchurch Park.
Bare Naked.
We don’t want anyone to panic, it’s not what you might think. Our events are going ‘Bare-naked’ as from now.
As we partner more organisations involved in improving the local environment from issues ranging from fly tipping to beach pollution we are playing our part.
The Bare Naked strategy is affective immediately and applicable to all of our events that are totally in our control. We will also encourage third party venues to adopt the policy. All traders taking part in our events to have biodegradable packaging and no single use plastic.
We are currently looking at the possibility of producing our own reusable drinking containers displaying our branding and that of a sponsor, if anyone is interested. In time we will encourage local traders to take part in the scheme and who knows the seafront traders might even adopt the scheme.
Anti- Litter Campaign.
We will continue to promote our anti-litter campaign in partnership with the artist Darren Goddard and Bob the Squirrel.
To encourage visitors to our beaches and city, to pick up their litter and either bin it or if the bins are full to take it home.
Although our area covers beaches on the east side of the city, our campaign covers all seven miles of coastline enjoyed by us all in Southend.
It may seem a little to the point and rude, sometimes that is the only way. We also know that’s it’s the minority who create the unsightly scenes. So, our ‘Don't be a Tosser’ campaign returns. Thank you, Bob, for persuading Darren to allow us to use the image.
