Southend-on-Sea, ENG - Postcode - SS3 9JW

Southend-on-Sea, England

Located in southeast Essex, Southend-on-Sea, is a city and borough on England's south coast. It's located 40 miles (64 km) east of central London, on the north bank of the Thames Estuary. It is bordered to the north by Rochford and to the west by Castle Point. Southend Pier, located there, is the longest leisure pier in the entire globe.  To the north of downtown London is London Southend Airport.

Southend-on-Sea originally comprised of a few modest fishermen's huts and fields near the southern end of the village of Prittlewell. The earliest structures along the area that would become Southend's High Street were finished in the 1790s. Southend Pier was built in the nineteenth century, solidifying Southend's reputation as a seaside resort thanks in large part to a visit from Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The city's tourism industry began to collapse in the 1960s and never fully recovered. Because it had one of the earliest electronic telephone exchanges in the UK, Southend rebranded itself as the birthplace of the Access credit card. Many historic buildings were demolished to make way for modern shopping and business districts after the 1960s. Since 1986, every May on the beach has been the site of an airshow that has included a flyby by Concorde.

Economy

Southend-on-regional Sea's gross value added at current basic prices is depicted in this chart from Office for National Statistics (pp. 240-253), with values given in millions of British Pounds.

The InsureandGo travel insurance firm moved its headquarters from Braintree to Southend-on-Maitland Sea's House in 2006. A total of 120 positions were relocated from Braintree, and the company has stated its intention to add more in the future. [38] However, in 2016, the company announced that it will be moving to Bristol. The building is presently home to Ventrica, a customer service outsourcing company.

Eastwood's Progress Road, Comet and Aviation Ways, and Sutton's Stock Road are all home to industrial parks serving Southend. Olympus Keymed, Hi-Tec Sports, and MK Electric are just a few of the Southend-based companies. Only the Royal Bank of Scotland's card services (now branded NatWest) remain in Southend, indicating the city's decline as a hub for credit card administration.

Nearly one-fifth of the UK's working population makes the daily trip to London. Southend has the second-lowest wages in the United Kingdom for jobs situated there in 2015. Additionally, the percentage of residents aged 65 and up is fourth highest. As a result, the housing market faces significant stresses. It ranks 11th in the UK for highest average home prices.

Since the early twentieth century, Southend power station has been Sea County Borough Corporation's primary source of electricity for the borough. Ownership of the electrical grid was transferred from private companies to the British Electricity Authority and then to the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1948 as part of the process of nationalizing the electricity sector. The 5.75 MW power plant was no longer necessary after it was connected to the national grid. Diesel engines were used to generate steam, and the steam was used to generate electricity. In its final year of operation, the power plant supplied 2,720 MWh of electricity to the municipality before it was shut down in 1966.