Southend City Council leader celebrates "fantastic accolade" of best seaside town
The city welcomes 7 million tourists a year
Southend-on-Sea has topped the Mirror's best seaside towns list, and Southend City Council leader Daniel Cowan says "its a fantastic accolade."
In an interview with Greatest Hits Radio Essex, we asked what makes Southend the best seaside town in the country.
Daniel Cowan said:
"We've put a huge amount of effort into turning around the reputation of our city by putting on fantastic events, by working closely with our business community, by working closely with the police and our Community safety team to ensure that when people come to Southend that they're safe.
"We are obviously helped out by having 7 miles of gorgeous coastline and generally having better weather than other parts of the country. But Southend is a fantastic place to come for more than just the beach.
"We've got incredible arts, culture, history, music and we as a Council administration have been working really hard to enhance those elements of our city and to encourage people to come here. So it's great to see recognition for all of the hard work that goes in between us, the businesses and the people of the city and making South end a great place."
Southend receives 7 million visitors a year, and Daniel said that the city is able to "massively punch above" its weight.
"We are a city of 183,000 people.
"We get 7 million visitors a year, which is approximately 34 times our population.
"If you look at London, they get 30 million visitors a year, and they have 8 million people who live there, which means they get 4 times.
"We get 34 times, so we massively punch above our weight.
"I think what's so great about Southend and what we we need to treasure, we need to nurture and continue to do is keep alive the fact that Southend is 100 different things all at once so we can attract a wide range of visitors and that's one of the beauties of major cities."
"I think we've got a lot going for us and we need to nurture that and we need to continue to innovate and encourage people to keep coming here. So in five years time, we're talking about Southend having won it five years in a row."
He also said that he feels the council should be as invested in "cultural events, culture, art, music and tourism, as it is in cutting the grass and getting bins collected."
He said the city has a "kind of coastal charm."
"There are very few places who are as small as Southend that have the same ability to attract as many people."