There is a particular problem with waste collections and street cleaning. We are in touch with the Council about this and the problems coming from unco-ordinated collection and street cleaning, commercially contracted services and planning decisions. At present there are Council plans to move to fortnightly domestic collections but this has been deferred with the recent local elections.

Parking is always a difficult and contentious issue but it is generally agreed that we need to maintain the free, two hour parking in the road and improve the provision as best as possible. One idea of extending the chevron parking outside Café O Portugues up the wide section of Hamlet Court Road towards Ditton Court Road has been put to the Council.

Improved signage is one of the strong ideas to come out of the Task Force meetings, whether this be directional signage for the road generally and car parking or promotional signage.This is under consideration withthe intention of a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) fundingbid in due course.

Our first project was to bring festive lights to Hamlet. Court Road, which we achieved thanks to generous donations from local residents and businesses. We celebrated the first night of the lights on Friday 22 November in our inaugural Festive Friday! There’s still time to donate to our festive lights fundraiser! Just click here. Alternatively you can donate using a cheque or directly to our bank account, please email: info@hamletcourtcalling.org for details. 

Well planted planters cheer us all up. Our friends at Grassroots Westcliff have taken on care of the planters on Hamlet Court Road. They are looking for green-fingered residents or businesses to help them - check out the beautiful planter Olives By The Sea cares for outside their cafe on Hamlet Court Road. Sign up here to get involved. 

We are seeing more action against anti-social behaviour as in April 2024 Hamlet Court
Road was allocated extra funding to drive down incidents. As the police use reports of crime or anti-social behaviour to identify areas that need extra resources, we are in regular contact with our community policing team to raise concerns. If you need to report anti-social behaviour, use your MySouthend account to file a report

One big transformational idea is to introduce a new destination market to lower Hamlet Court Road, perhaps on a monthly basis. This could easily occupy the wider section of Hamlet Court Road where the ‘In Harmony’ event has already proved the concept of road closure. A market that includes farmers food and flea/vintage/antique could be very attractive and complement the road.

Look up and the fantastic buildings of upper Hamlet Court Road (south of London Road) reveal themselves. But at shop level there is a general mismatch of shop fronts. Numerous schemes across the country have seen carefully designed replacement frontages in action zone areas that have transformed their neighbourhoods.