It’s a Purple Flag for Southend !

Great news another flag for Southend and it’s the first purple flag in Essex. Well Done the Police and Town Centre Partnership.

Southend has a new flag to add to its impressive haul of five blue and four green ones – a PURPLE flag.

Purple Flag is a new accreditation scheme which recognises excellence in the management of town and city centres at night. just as Blue Flags are a guarantee of good beaches, Purple Flags act as an indicator of where to go for a good night out.

The standard is only awarded to entertainment areas which are judged to have met a strict set of criteria.

To date only 25 Purple Flags have been awarded but today (Wednesday 25^th April) the Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM) has announced five new recipients.

They include Southend’s High Street and Sea Front, the first area in Essex to have its night-time economy recognised.

In awarding the Purple Flag the ATCM rated Southend as ‘above standard’ in two of the five judging criteria – ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘A Broad Appeal’.

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Essex Police Update on Riots

This email is sent on
behalf of Deputy Chief Constable Derek Benson

Following on from the violent disorder seen across London and in cities across
the UK, I wanted to write to you with some reassurance on the situation in Essex. We have sought to keep our communities informed and yesterday put out a strong message to the public via our website and twitter, as well as through the media.

We have seen no violent disorder in Essex akin to what has been
happening in larger cities across the country. Where there has been minor
disorder, Essex Police has acted quickly to make arrests. On Monday following a
burglary in Buckhurst Hill, 13 men were arrested, and following minor damage to a police vehicle in Loughton, two male youths were arrested. In Harlow, four people were arrested for minor damage in the town centre.  We have seen a number of young people gathering in large groups in various places across the county, but Essex Police has taken immediate action by deploying public order officers to disperse such groups. This early intervention has meant we have not seen any large scale disorder.

Last night (Tuesday) Police officers arrested a 17-year-old man from Clacton for incitement to commit violent disorder after comments were published on facebook encouraging people to gather at a location in Essex and cause
disorder.  The man remains in police custody. We also arrested two
teenagers from Grays and South Ockendon, for
sing social networking websites for incitement to commit violent
disorder.  Essex Police is monitoring social media and will not tolerate
anyone who uses the internet or any electronic communication device to send
inaccurate and false messages intending to incite disorder, or cause alarm.

Essex Police has a robust plan in place and is utilising additional resources by calling officers and staff in to work on their rest days. We have been providing support to colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Service. We currently have between 50 – 100 officers in London at any one time from within our establishment of over 3000 police officers, over 400 PCSOs and several hundred Special Constables.

Your support is important to us. When you are speaking to the public please help us by reassuring them that Neighbourhood Policing teams remain in place across Essex and Police Officers, PCSOs and Special Constables are working in communities to ensure a high visibility policing presence. Essex Police is doing all it can to ensure Essex remains a safe place to live and
work and will continue to work with partners across the criminal justice system
to ensure that any criminality is dealt with swiftly and robustly.

You can also assist the police by encouraging the public to call 999 if they witness any incidents taking place or to call our non emergency number 101 or 0300 333 4444 to pass on information or intelligence.

We are updating our website with the latest information in Essex
throughout the day and night, so this is the best place to look for updates
should the situation change. http://essex.police.uk

Thank you for your continued support and please get in touch if you have any further questions or comments.

Yours faithfully

Derek Benson

Deputy Chief Constable