COUNCILLORS and residents are joining forces in an effort to preserve the architectural character of Leigh.

The new alliance is being forged in response to a discussion started by residents at Leigh Town Council’s annual meeting at the Elm Road community centre.

Resident Jon Mullett urged councillors to act to preserve the things unique to Leigh’s architecture, which he said he had seen slowly consumed by development over his lifetime.

He added: “I grew up in Leigh and I’ve spent the past 50 years watching all the little pretty things that make this town unique slowly disappear.

“Where the car park is now, behind the Grand Hotel, there used to be an art deco car showroom, and, where they’re building the block of flats across the road, next to it used to be an old music hall with a beautiful archway.

That’s now gone.”

Margaret Buckley, secretary of the Leigh Society, said she was also concerned about the number of historic shopfronts which had been knocked through by developers.

Another resident Danielle O’Rourke said she believed the town’s businesses stood to gain from preserving its old buildings, as the town’s unique character drew in visitors.

She said: “The town is full of Londoners who come here more than to Southend because of those little things that make it special. That’s what people from outside of Leigh want.”

Fellow residents Pat Holden and Caroline Parker also spoke in support of preserving what remained of the town’s older buildings, before council leader Richard Herbert promised the council would get more local people involved in decision-making.

He said: “We’ve no power over planning, but we can be influential.

If we are trying to fight an inappropriate development, we need to up our game, and the way to do that is to involve more people from the local community and offer them a forum.

“The council does have a small amount for capital projects. This could be a future project.”

Mr Mullett also raised fears about the drinking fountain on Leigh Hill he had used as a child.

Now it was no longer in use, he feared it would be another feature of the town to go.

Town and borough councillor Carole Mulroney said the fountain had been out of use for too long because it didn’t meet modern standards, but she said Southend Council knew it was a feature the town council wished to preserve.

She added the town council could add strength to its planning influence by putting together its own set of planning policies to which Southend Council could then refer.

LEGAL covenants could be used to help preserve Leigh’s character, Southend Council leader Ron Woodley has said Mr Woodley was at Leigh Town Council’s annual meeting on Friday and heard residents’ concerns.

He told the meeting, as chairman of Thorpe Bay Residents’ Association, he had been encouraging homeowners to put restrictive covenants on their homes barring them from being bought up and turned into flats.

He told the meeting: “What we’ve done in Thorpe Bay is got every resident and family of 1,800 homes to agree to a covenant on their property, so it can’t be converted into flats or demolished, so, no matter what the council does, you can challenge it and say ‘no, I’ve got a covenant and this is going to stay as a single dwelling.’”

Mr Woodley also commented on residents’ concerns for the integrity of the town’s old-fashioned shops, saying Southend also had many impressive shop buildings, if you looked above the modern shopfronts.

He said: “There’s some beautiful architecture in town – even in Southend High Street, if you look above the shops.

Wouldn’t that be nice to bring that back down again? Yes, they can be modern shops inside, but we should bring the traditional architecture back down again.”