The first Southend City Day will be held on March 1, celebrating pride in the city and highlighting its best features.
Ahead of the event, a big clean-up will take place including a blitz on graffiti and a “complete clean-up” of the streets across the city.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting where the plan was rubber-stamped, Lydia Hyde, councillor responsible for climate, environment and waste, said: “I’m delighted to see action on graffiti. I’m pleased to say we’ve got squads going out in the coming weeks to do a complete graffiti blitz, a complete clean-up of the city. I would encourage residents to report blights of graffiti on ‘My Southend’ and we will be taking the jet wash to them.
“We’re taking the jet wash to our streets with a nice, good deep clean down the High Street and making our streets sparkle. We will be sparkling-on-sea by the time of city day.”
The £1million Civic Pride Plan, which will be partly funded by grants and reserves, will still cost the council in excess of £500,000.
Laurie Burton, councillor responsible for children’s services and SEND, also welcomed the clean up.
He said: “Often we focus on the big things affecting the city but actually for a lot of people it’s the smaller things that are important to them. It’s about the graffiti and the broken posts and the paving slabs because that’s the things they notice.
“Nothing makes me more sad if I’m out canvassing and somebody says Southend isn’t what it used to be and that it was so much better in the 60s and 70s. What they mean is it’s not as well kept. We don’t want residents to feel like that.”
Daniel Cowan, leader of the council, said businesses had a part to play in civic pride, urging them to carry out there own clean-up efforts.
He said: “It’s also about the businesses here that they not only feel cared for and listened to but also they are taking care of their business fronts. One of my frequent complaints about the High Street is the number of shops where their frontages are just awful. The awnings are covered in bird droppings. The fronts are unswept. The glass is not cleaned.
“The vast majority of those issues tend to be with national chains, not with small local businesses.
“Our small business owners take incredible pride in the shop fronts they have and it’s that element of pride that we really want to push out there and have everyone feel that about their community.”