IT’LL be very clear and very obvious to regular Echo readers that after my many years being privileged and allowed to air my personal views here each and every week, I’m an oldie, long retired from challenging and thoroughly enjoyable working life and long a champion in print of our south-east Essex and especially my Southend birthplace.

I have praised and I have pilloried individuals, groups, official decisions, without ever having in any way been personal. I say all this, as my introduction to this particular essay, because I am about to express my sadness and my frustration over the appalling state of some of Southend’s historic, cherished institutions. I refer to the town’s beach huts. Well, especially the state of some of the many, probably hundreds in total, down near where I live at Shoebury Common.

I emphasise, right away, that the vast majority of these assorted huts are cared about and care for. They are kept in fine condition, repainted regularly, restored when and where necessary. But, alas, there are quite a few, now, that are badly, very badly and sadly, rundown and neglected. They are rotting and rotten to see. Some seem long beyond restoration so that they surely should be removed and replaced. I think we used to have foreshore inspectors who kept eye on our seaside surroundings, but if there are still such officers, they are few in number and rarely seen.

Of course, it sadly may well be that the very worst of these seemingly abandoned huts – and I stress that the majority are indeed well cared for – were owned by folk perhaps no longer with us. Or older people no longer able to get to the seaside or to undertake repairs and redecoration or to afford to pay others to do so. I believe there may well be a beach hut owners’ association, so surely that body would have names and contact details of owners.

Also, one assumes that the council has records of ownerships and addresses. So, if officers from Civic Centre made an occasional foray to the foreshore and noted the numbers and/or names of the very worst of the huts, or if elected ward councillors themselves took an occasional well-intended, brief exterior peep at the worst of the huts and noted numbers, some appropriate action might be taken. I absolutely do not suggest any threats or demands or any frightening of owners. Helpful, useful advice and encouragement are needed.

I imagine that many of the scores and scores of huts along the Common date back more years than we might anywhere near estimate or guess. Whatever their state or condition, I assume they are rightly much valued and therefore must command high sums if and when offered for sale, even the most rundown and neglected of them. I draw this attention to them now because they are institutions, icons of Britain’s seaside that have survived so many changes, so many highs and lows, so many weather extremes and even the rotten behaviour of the mindless minority of vandals.

In short – and please excuse the pun – all I am calling for, really urging, is some pure common sense. Thank you.