Anna Waite has the front to criticise the type of people who live here and blame them for the demise of the shops in the High Street, not the rent the council charges or the parking prices.

The type of people in Southend are no different to any other place in the world, so if they don’t fit in with her lifestyle maybe she should leave.

I know she wouldn’t be missed.

R Watts
Coleman Street
Southend

...I find Anna Waite’s views on Southend High Street obnoxious. It is people who are important, not grand designs which sit in the civic centre, designs to which most people are oblivious until they start to become a reality and it is too late.

Plonking the university site directly in the middle of our High Street altered the whole setup of our town.

Why didn’t they instead develop an Eastern Avenue Campus or Victoria Avenue, where there was an existing college building?

The town is all out of kilter.

We don’t need power hungry types running Southend. We need people with vision, yes, but those who also care about decent human values.

Hazel Smith
Boscombe Road
Southend

...We who objected to former councillor Anna Waite’s remarks concerning single mums and benefit claimants in Southend High Street may have missed the most important aspect of those offensive statements, which is the timing of them.

Can it be a coincidence the Tory chairman’s outburst appeared in the Echo at the same time as the council budget, with its appalling list of redundancies, cuts to front-line services, closure of children’s centres and the hike in the price of meals-on-wheels?

It is possible our attention has been diverted from the latest round of unjustified cuts, and vulnerable people on low incomes have been further insulted by being used in a shabby political trick.

Ric Morgan
Hobleythick Lane
Westcliff