Live from the Freedom of Southend Parade, Southend High Street, 17 June 2010.

The 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, back from their third tour of duty in Afganistan are currently marching down Southend High Street, being cheered by thousands of locals.

The troops have just been inspected by the Mayor, the Deputy Colonel of the Royal Anglian Regiment, the Lord Lieutenant of Essex and the High Sheriff of Essex. The troops are now marching down the centre of the High Street towards the seafront.

The freedom of the borough of Southed is awarded to people that have rendered outstanding service to the community, and is the highest award that the council can make.

Here are a couple of pictures, live from the scene.

Update: See our forum for more photos and discussion: sarfend.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1276785742

Crowds are gathering in Southend High Street for this afternoon’s parade to welcome home soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglican Regiment, back from their third tour of duty in Afganistan.

Crowds started gathering at around 11am, with many waving the Union Jack. The parade is expected to start at 1230.

The scene from the centre of the High Street at noon:

Locals in Leigh-on-Sea wondering what the commotion in the Eastwood Boulevard / Cavendish Gardens at the moment, note that two fire engines from Southend station are in attendance at a fire on waste ground off Nelson Road, next to the old Albany Laundry site.

Smoke is billowing from what looks like a blue hut or shed. Fireman have had to use short ladders to gain access to the site.

Taken at the scene in Leigh at 9:30pm for Sarfend.co.uk

Thanks to one of our regulars for pointing out that we’ve not posted a summary of the results of the 2010 elections. We’re sure you know the results, but a recap never hurts.

In the General Election:

• Southend West: 46% of votes to Conservative. David Amess MP remains
• Rochford and Southend East: 47% of votes to Conservative. James Duddridge MP remains

In the local elections:

Conservatives increased their seats by 2, and control Southend Borough Council

• Conservative: Belfairs, Chalkwell, Eastwood Park, Kursaal, Milton, Shoeburyness, Southchurch, St Lukes, West Leigh, West Shoebury
• Liberal Democrats: Blenheim Park, Leigh, Prittlewell, St Laurence, Westborough
• Labour: Victoria
• Independent: Thorpe

Update: On the 13th of May 2010, councillor Ann Holland (Conservative) formally became the new Southend Mayor, taking over from Lib Dem Brian Smith.

It can’t have escaped your notice, but the people of Essex are today voting in the General and Local Elections.

We’ve checked in with a couple of polling stations in the Southend West constituency, and are told that turnout is good – higher than in previous elections.

The scene at one polling station in Leigh-on-Sea this lunchtime

Those voting today may be interested to find out just how your vote counts, and we’ve found some interesting information, courtesy of the website voterpower.org.uk

Rochford and Southend East: Listed as a “Fairly Safe” Conservative seat. Just over 69,000 voters

Southend West: Slightly smaller than the average constituency, with just over 66,000 eligible voters, this is a “Very Safe” Conservative seat. Apparently, a vote in this constituency only counts for 0.094 of a vote, based on the probability of the seat changing hands.

It’s a lovely day for a stroll to your local polling station, so make sure you excercise your right by 10pm tonight.

Google has just rolled out an upgrade to their controversial mapping service. In the Summer of 2009, a special Google car, equipped with state of the art cameras, roamed around Southend taking pictures of our town.

Those images are now live, and by typing an address into maps.google.co.uk , you’ll be able to see and navigate around to see what the cameras picked up.

If you’ve not used the service before – the trick is to type in a street address or postcode into maps.google.co.uk, then drag the little icon of a person from the controller on the left, and drop the person onto the appropriate street. You’re then in a scrollable view of that street and can move around, pan up, turn around and zoom.

Found anything interesting happening in Southend? Let us know below

Doing our bit for citizen jornalism, we’re just back from the scene of what seems to be a fairly major fire on London Road, Leigh-on-Sea.

It seems that the blaze has hit the showroom of Mad Dogs & Englishmen at 1345 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea, and Just Bikes at 1339 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea.

As of 19:55 on Sunday 05 April 2009, the fire is still blazing away. We saw at least six engines in attendance, including crew from Hadleigh, Leigh, Southend and Canvey Island. The aerial platform was also in use to fight the flames. The crews appeared to be drawing water from three different hydrants. We saw some of the crews donning breathing apparatus, and there were at least two ambulances in attendance.

According to initial reports, the fire may have started at Just Bikes, spreading to Mad Dogs. The petrol and oil at the rear of the bike shop, plus the paints and thinners at the furniture store had for a particularly nasty fire.

At the time of writing, the London Road remains closed between Elmsleigh Drive and Belfairs Drive, with a solid police cordon. Smoke and flames can be seen from quite a distance.

Lots of locals are in attendance to see what’s going on, and a fair few were snapping away on camera phones, capturing the scene for posterity.

As were we. Here are a few photos taken between 7 and 8pm:

Congrats to the emergency services for their hard work.

Contact us for images if required.

Whale sited off Southend Pier – Believed to be connected to the northern bottle-nosed whale that sadly died on 21st January during an attempt to move the stricken creature from Battersea. More.