Southend-on-Sea City Council

Southend-on-Sea City Council
Type
Type	Unitary authority
Leadership
Mayor	Ron Woodley, Independent since 9 May 2024
Leader	Daniel Cowan, Labour since 20 May 2024
Chief Executive	Colin Ansell since 5 February 2024
Structure
Seats	51 councillors
Political groups	Administration (28)   Labour (19)   Independent Group (5)   Liberal Democrats (4) Other parties (23)   Conservative (16)   Reform UK (2)   Green (2)   Non-Aligned Independent (3)
Elections
Voting system	First-past-the-post
Last election	2 May 2024
Next election	7 May 2026
Meeting place
Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, SS2 6ER
Website
www.southend.gov.uk

Southend-on-Sea City Council is the local authority of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. Southend has had an elected local authority since 1866, which has been reformed several times. Since 1998 the council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council; it is independent from Essex County Council

The council has been under no overall control since 2019. Since 2024 it has been led by a coalition of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some of the independent councillors. It is based at Southend Civic Centre.

Since 2024, the government has planned to abolish the council and merge it with other parts of Essex as part of its planned reorganisation of local government in Essex in 2025.^[1]