I LIKE to think anyone who may kindly read these personal opinion pieces of mine – will accept I try to speak from the heart.

I am delighted and honoured to be part of a democratic process where people can plainly and genuinely speak their minds, be critics and themselves be criticised. I do not speak for any group or party. Yet, today, I do wish to say a few words on behalf of Southend Council, would you believe?!

Less than a year after taking the reins at Civic Centre, where one party had been in power, privilege and total control for many years, the present administration, chaired by an Independent, is having a tough time because there is no clear majority group.

When us council taxpayers look and hope for sensible understanding and united action on our behalf, for our town, there is, now, much spiteful point scoring, bickering and division.

When we, who pay the bills, know we have to keep our own household budgets within reason, we are shocked and, frankly,much angered by the mess Southend’s council is in.

This past week, one of the recommended savings – if small in comparison with the council’s monstrous mountain of debt – has been the announcement some public toilets are to be closed.

Oh, what a stink this has caused! What a truly wonderful opportunity for all or any of us to lash out at the council.

At first consideration – yes, maybe it is a shocking, appalling, disgraceful, uncaring, diabolical thing even to contemplate.

At Shoebury, news of a proposed closure of the loos at East Beach had one reader contacting me to say that such a terrible thing would have bus drivers, at the end of their route before returning to Southend, and beyond, cross-legged in fear and intense discomfort.

And where would owners and occupants of the highly-expensive new beach huts find relief this summer? Would they pee in the sea – or foul where Foulness is the distant backdrop?

Ah, well, the answer was less bothersome. There are two public conveniences hereabouts and the oldest, much more rundown of the two is on the death list.

Th emore up-to-date loo, the one convenient for bus drivers and others, is not on the chopping block. So an old, rundown, dreadful public toilet block just into Campfield Road from Ness Road, is under sentence of death. Good.

Either it should have been updated, modernised, extended years ago – or closed.

It’s all very well – and perhaps even understandable in some cases – that a stink is kicked-up over public toilets. But there’s even deep anger and opposition in some areas to a proposal by the council to actually spend a lot of money on replacing, updating and reopening a loo at Thorpe Bay Corner – the onlyplace of relief for those in dire need anywhere near that part of the seafront.

Come on, now, you councillors of all shades. You have been voted into office not to score points, not to bicker, but to get together in sense and understanding – in consideration for the people who put you in office. By us, who love our town, know it to be in trouble and hope it can be flushed with pride, flushed with success – and certainly not flushed down the pan by misunderstanding, mistrust and misinformation.