Reform UK Southend and Rochford

26/10/2026

Cllr Cowan wrote to his own minister practically begging for intervention, and he got it.

One man’s letter has cost Southend control of its Local Plan. He has to go

The leader has accused them of 'playing political games'

26/10/2026

🚨The Labour Leader Daniel Cowan is destroying our city.🚨

He wrote to his own party’s Housing Minister. On Friday the Minister wrote back with an order: publish the 14,700-home Local Plan unchanged, 4,900 homes on Green Belt land north of Bournes Green included. Labour has overruled Southend.

He has no mandate for it. Labour got 16% of the vote in May. Three in four voters backed candidates who promised to protect the Green Belt. The council’s own needs study says 9,800 homes on brownfield land meet Southend’s projected need. The Green Belt homes are for outsiders, not local families.

So ten Reform UK councillors have requisitioned an Extraordinary Council to remove him and elect a new Leader the same night. It takes 26 votes. Labour has 17. Twenty-seven councillors sit outside Labour’s deal, and the six Lib Dems and Independents who keep him in office all voted to protect the Green Belt in August.

The motion is on the table. Now every councillor votes, in public.

Ask yours how they will vote: democracy.southend.gov.uk lists them by ward. Then share this.

25/10/2026

Any support would be greatly appreciated. Email [email protected] if you can spare some time.

The Royal British Legion is looking for volunteers to help man poppy stalls across our local area in particular Lidl at Progress Road and Morrisons at Western Approaches, raising vital funds for the Poppy Appeal to support our veterans and Armed Forces community.

If you can spare some time, please drop me an email at [email protected] and I will put you in touch with them.

25/10/2026

We've reached 1,600 followers, which means Reform in Southend now has more followers than the local Labour and Conservative parties pages combined.

Thank you to everyone who follows us. Next stop is 2,000 and the local uniparty will have to work a lot harder if they want to keep up with our momentum.

25/10/2026

Labour must be stopped in Southend. They have their head in the sand, refusing to listen to our residents.

23/10/2026

21/10/2026

This is totally wrong and abhorrent. He is certainly not welcome in Southend. You can disagree with politicians, but this is low-life behaviour shame on him.

21/10/2026

At Monday's Audit and Governance Committee I asked officers about the social housing repairs backlog, which now stands at around 1,800 jobs that the council hopes to clear by Christmas.

I have been concerned not just about the size of the backlog but about the quality of work in St Laurence Ward, where several residents have raised poor workmanship with me and I have had to report jobs again because they were not done correctly or to standard the first time. My involvement has got some of these works done after residents had raised them numerous times without action, but this improvement needs to happen and quickly, and I will be keeping a close eye on it as we head towards Christmas.