Published 1st October 2020

Southend-on-Sea residents are being urged to shop locally to support the borough’s retail and business sector. Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has launched the ‘Shop Local, Shop Southend-on-Sea’ campaign, to highlight and promote the wealth of excellent local businesses our shopping districts have to offer.

Labour Councillor Kevin Robinson, cabinet member for business, culture and tourism said: “We have a fantastic array of local, independent shops here in Southend that complement our national chain stores. As we continue with our recovery from Covid-19, it is important that we support our local businesses. The campaign is also to support and promote all businesses in Southend-on-Sea, Westcliff-on-Sea, Leigh-on-Sea, Southchurch Village and Thorpe Bay – pubs and eateries, salons and barbers, tradespeople and everything in-between. I’m encouraging businesses to use the campaign to actively promote themselves and urge customers to support our businesses by sharing their great local experiences on social media using hashtags #shoplocal and #shopsouthend.

The council plans to run a media campaign through to Christmas and possibly extend it into the spring of 2021. As part of  the campaign the council has produced a set of ‘Shop Local, Shop Southend-on-Sea’ resources for businesses to download and use for free. These include a short video (above) showcasing the shopping offers across the borough and localised posters referencing key shopping areas.  It is also planned to incorporate national Small Business Saturday (5 December 2020) in the campaign, to promote Southend’s independent businesses to a wide audience and to run Southend’s Best Festive Business Competition (from November to Christmas) to generate much needed custom for local retail businesses and festive spirit for all.

The council’s cabinet also agreed earlier this month to extend the buy one-hour, get one-hour free parking scheme aimed at short stay customers until 31 March 2021, in a bid to entice residents and visitors to continue shopping locally and support the recovery from COVID-19.  Customers buying a one-hour parking ticket will get their second hour free in all council-owned car parks. The offer only applies to the one-hour parking band, or the two-hour parking band in the Fairheads Green and Gasworks car parks (buy two hours and get one hour free).

For more information on the campaign visit https://www.visitsouthend.co.uk/shopping/shoplocal.aspx

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