I am a season card- carrying, shirt-wearing, flag-flying Southend United fan.

For more than 40 years, since the age of five, I have been a Blues supporter, literally, I guess, watching thousands of games.

However, I do not feel I have the right to comment fully on the application to Southend Council with regard to the stadium, because I do not live in the borough.

I do feel, though, as a lifelong resident of Rochford, that I may comment on the application that is within the district.

I honestly believe the planning applications to Rochford and Southend for the whole of the stadium development are about much more than a new ground for the football club.

Despite what Rochford residents and councillors may like to think, we are inextricably linked to the borough of Southend.

Being a focal point for the area means the football club does not just represent Southend, it represents the whole of south Essex.

Walk through Hockley, Rayleigh or Great Wakering and count the shirts and scarves.

The past few years have been wonderful times for Southend supporters, with two promotions and three trips to finals at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

It has been a great pleasure for me to see so many young people watching and following the Blues, instead of just watching Premiership teams on television.

Much of this new support is due to the efforts of manager Steve Tilson, chairman Ron Martin and the boys, but a great deal is due to the club's commercial department.

When we were in the then First Division, in the 1990s, the most season tickets sold was 2,500. This season it is nearly 7,000.

This area wants and needs a successful football club that can compete with the big boys. Without a new modern stadium, this just will not happen.

To my horror, some months ago, I found that my holiday clashed with probably the club's biggest ever game.

When the holiday was booked, I never dreamt we would reach the Carling Cup fourth round and meet Manchester United at home.

As I wish to remain married to my long-suffering wife, I therefore ended up in an Egyptian bar full of Brits, going wild, watching the game on TV.

At the end of the game the name of Southend United was on everybody's lips. Days later, in the queue at the airport, two men in front of me were still talking about it.

That is what success for Southend United gives.

It helps put the area in everyone's mind.

To specifics.

I understand from the media that the application to Rochford District Council which covers three training pitches and 454 parking spaces is recommended for refusal.

The reason given, I believe, is that the application will set a precedent for this type of use in the Green Belt, if allowed. This is clearly nonsense.

It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that another application for a sports stadium on this scale will ever be seen in the area again. As such, what precedent could be set?

A planning application for training pitches, with floodlights, for Great Wakering Football Club on Grade 1 agricultural land, was granted permission last year.

Your own authority granted itself consent to build Clements Hall Sports Centre in Hawkwell, with all the car parking, training pitches and floodlighting that go with it.

Clements Hall was wholly in the Metropolitan Green belt at the time. A precedent has already been set.

Please support the club at the planning meeting. Consent will bring great facilities to south Essex and help promote the area, as well as the Mighty Blues.

Finally to Southend councillors I would make these points.

I may have been a Hockley resident for the vast majority of my life, but I was born within a mile of the application site so feel able to offer my opinion.

The fact that the application includes a hotel, flats and retail outlets, must not be used as an excuse to turn it down.

These developments are a vital part of the project, which will fund the stadium.

No factory or shop would ever be built that could only be used for 90 minutes, 25 times a year, neither can the stadium.

As to the thought that it may detract from Southend High Street, Lakeside, Bluewater and Basil-don's Festival Leisure Park saw to that years ago.

Let's see some decent out-of-town shopping and leisure facilities in Southend. It's what the public wants, as they vote with their cars and trek out of all the local towns. I know I do!

I am fed up with the embarrassment of being born in a town that cannot ever do anything.

A town with half a ring road, a burnt-out, featureless pleasure pier, a derelict gasworks, a disappearing bandstage, a tired, clone High Street, a missing marina, a tatty, tacky seafront and slipping cliffs.

For heaven's sake, just for once, do something and support the stadium.

Up The Blues!