DEMOLITION and regeneration of the Queensway estate will still go ahead under Southend’s new Tory council...but could leave the authority with a £300million debt for half a century.

After admitting initially throwing his “political toys out of the pram” over the issue, new housing councillor Mark Flewitt told the Echo yesterday the authority would be going ahead with the scheme laid out by the previous independent-led council.

However, he said he wanted to throw open the options to all councillors so they could “take ownership” of the project and contribute to its final form, over fears the enormous cost – more than £300million - could leave the council in debt for up to 50 years.

He said: “The new administration inherited this huge project and our options were either to cancel it or to go ahead.

“We’ve chosen to go ahead, but the format will have some substantial changes and we are talking about planning changes to the way it’s been designed, but the critical question is whether we should take down traditional tower blocks and put up new ones.

“And, because of the huge financial implications which include borrowing about a third of a billion pounds and the fact we could be paying this off as long as 50 years, I need as many councillors as possible to contribute.

“What we don’t want is, once building starts, people saying ‘look how much these Tories have borrowed.’ We want the council, as a whole, to take ownership of this project and tenants and residents will be afforded every opportunity to add to the views already safely kept with this project.”

He added a progress report would be published by the council in September.

The previous council, led by independent Thorpe councillor Ron Woodley until the May 5 elections, had initially considered refurbishing the four notorious 1960s tower blocks but eventually settled on demolishing them and rebuilding with more, smaller, blocks of flats.

Former housing councillor David Norman, whose Victoria ward includes the estate, said he hoped to press for the council’s original plan to be put through.

He said: “We set out a very clear programme for Queensway which included 417 units of social housing and provision for leaseholders and also, whilst I was portfolio-holder, I gave a guarantee that all current residents of Queensway including tenants and leaseholders would have a right of return.

“For me that was one of the most important things. We will have to see what changes the administration proposes and I shall continue to press to ensure all residents are kept fully informed.”

AMBITIOUS plans to regenerate the Queensway estate are already almost two years in the making.

The then Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Independent administration first kicked off the “once in a generation” transformation in September 2014 and was at the time dubbed the biggest housing project the authority had ever undertaken.

At the time, demolishing the ageing Malvern, Chiltern, Quantock, and Pennine tower blocks was not ruled out, but it took until March this year for the authority to finally admit they would be pulled down – as it would be too costly to refurbish them.

It was understood the cost of breathing another 30 years of life into the 1960s towers was likely to cost in the region of £300million – the same figure new housing councillor Mark Flewitt has predicted for the entire regeneration project, will also likely include a redesign of the Queensway highway and housing behind Essex House.

Last September the council said it wanted to create 1,000 new homes at Queensway, 441 of which would be affordable homes, in an area which is currently only 10 per cent housing. There are currently only 417 homes on the site.

At the same time, the authority announced it wanted to build a new development connecting Southend Victoria train station with the Victoria Shopping Centre, cover the Queensway roundabout and remove the unpopular subway with the dual carriageway going through a tunnel, putting an extra lane in Chichester Road from Queensway to Southchurch Road.