Today, a grey and overcast Winter’s day, I took a rather miserable stroll down Southend High Street, stopping briefly to watch the shop-clearers doing their work gutting the latest High Street name to fall – Hawkins Bazaar. As you may have read in the press, Hawkin’s Bazaar (owned by the Tobar Group) went into administration [...]

This week sees two stores on Southend High Street close their doors for the last time. TJ Hughes Closes After being on the High Street for only a year, the T.J Hughes bargain department store closed on Tuesday the 16th, with the loss of 60 jobs. The store was, of course, the site of the [...]

Today, the 25th of March 2011, sees the launch of the Nintendo 3DS – The first 3D gaming device that doesn’t need silly glasses to get that 3D effect. Southenders – It pays to shop around! One of our team wanted to get their hands on the 3DS on the day of launch (as he’s a [...]

Into milkshakes? Southend’s about to get its very own ShakeAway Milkshake bar. Southend Shakeaway opens in the Victoria Shopping Centre on Saturday 19th March 2011 at 1pm and we’re told that they’ll be giving away the first 50 milkshakes free. The ShakeAway chain was established in 1999 and sells over 150 flavours of Milkshakes and [...]

It’s the year of the Rabbit, and Southend is celebrating today. All day today, Saturday the 5th of February 2011, there are a number of activities taking place to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The day’s events kicked off at 11am with a short speech by the Mayor of Southend, then an impressive display of [...]

It seems that high street coffee chain Costa Coffee is set to appear on Leigh Broadway, despite local opposition. According to a report in the Echo, the coffee company’s plans to take over the amusement arcade at 37 The Broadway, Leigh-on-Sea are set to be approved, as no complaints have been received from neighbouring properties. [...]

The new TJ Hughes store has just opened on Southend High Street, in the building that used to house the town’s Woolworths. TJ Hughes is a discount department store, and offers a range of products across home, textiles, beauty & fragrance, menswear, lingerie, toys and electrical. Work started at the site several weeks ago, as [...]

Although the Digital TV Switchover won’t affect most Southenders until April 2012, Sky’s been busy in Southend Town Centre, as it’s the first day of their four day “Sky Southend-on-Sea Roadshow“. If you happen to be at the Odeon end of Southend High Street between today, the 29th of July, and Sunday the 1st of [...]

Another day, another iPhone launch! Queues started forming well before 6am outside the Southend o2 store for today’s launch of the Apple iPhone 4. At at 7am, the queue already numbers 50. Update: By 8am, queues continues to grow to at least 150. o2 staff came to inform those beyond a certain point, by our [...]

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 [...]

Southend’s infamous Millennium Clock is to be removed. The clock arrived (12 monthe late) at the top of the High Street as a celebration of the dawn of a new millennium. It was based on a design by a local schoolgirl. Over the last nine years, the clock has been a) temperamental and b) controversial, [...]

OK – Technically, this isn’t a news story worthy of inclusion on southendnews.co.uk, but it’s our site, so we can bend the rules to vent a little. My mission today was to take back a faulty Joggler to the o2 store in Southend – you know – the one that’s been on the High Street [...]

Southend’s historic York Road Market closed on the 17th of October 2009. Following a Health and Safety review undertaken for the council in September, it was identified that the market, and the 22 shops based there, would have to close. Three days notice was given before the closure. The report cites rotted roof timbers, the [...]

This morning we saw ten eager shoppers in the o2 queue by 8:30, and two chaps with laptops and seats outside Southend High Street’s Carphone Warehouse. These chaps have been queueing for the new Apple iPhone 3GS, which goes on sale today. The new phone, an update on last year’s 3G version, offers a faster [...]

Hot on the heels of December’s announcement that High Street name Woolworths is set to vanish from Southend and Leigh’s high streets in January, it has s today been announced that Zavvi, situated at Southend’s Victoria Shopping Centre, has also gone into receivership. Woolworths has been trading in the UK for nearly 100 years, and [...]