Southend: Light festival celebrating city status could return

The light displays could be seen across Southend's High Street and seafront

A light festival with 10 installations from across the globe could become an annual event after its initial success.

Southend's LuminoCity, Festival of Light, attracted more than 200,000 people to the city, Councillor Ian Gilbert said.

The light festival celebrated Southend's new city status over three days from 16 February to 19 February.

One night of the festival was cancelled due to Storm Eunice, but the event was still "amazing", Mr Gilbert said.

It was funded by the government's Welcome Back Fund, which aims to help councils across England recover from the pandemic.

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council's bosses want to make the event bigger in the future if more sponsors can be attracted, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The council is also investigating ways to bring back the seafront lights that used to attract people to Southend.

Jacqui Dallimore, chair of the Southend Tourism Partnership, said: "The footfall figures are excellent, and the festival would have brought a much-needed boost to trade in the city centre and seafront, even with the difficulties of Storm Eunice."

Carole Mulroney, councillor responsible for environment, culture, tourism and planning, said: "There were many challenges put in front of us but the excitement everyone had for the festival shined through, and it was an incredibly fitting way of seeing us into this adventure of being the country's newest city."

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