ANNA Firth has revealed there are ‘three streams of work going on’ to save Southend United.
The Shrimpers remain in financial crisis ahead of the return to the High Court at the start of October.
And Ms Firth – MP for Southend West – is continuing to do all she can to help Blues including holding regular talks with Justin Rees who remain in discussions to buy the club.
“Essentially there are three streams of work on-going,” said Ms Firth.
“Plan A is supporting Australian-born, Justin Rees, and his consortium, to buy the club, bringing with it much-needed fresh energy and funds to ensure the club’s long-term survival.
“However, as most fans will know, given the level and range of debts, current operating losses, and the need for significant refurbishment of Roots Hall to make it sustainable, this is far from straight-forward.”
But Ms Firth confirmed talks were still ongoing.
“Negotiations are on-going on a daily basis with significant input needed to answer complex questions involving both myself, the Leader of Southend City Council, Cllr Tony Cox who has made himself available even on a Saturday night,” said Firth.
“As I said in Parliament last week: “𝑰 𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔, 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒃, 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒖𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅”.
Rees flew over to watch Blues against Bromley last month.
But Ms Firth is also looking at alternatives ways the Shrimpers could be helped.
“Given that the clock is ticking and the 4th October is fast-approaching, we have also being working in parallel on Plan B,” said Ms Firth.
“It’s looking into the possibility of applying for community ownership funding from the Department of Levelling-Up, similar to that applied for successfully by Bury Football Club.
READ MORE: Blues duo have suspensions confirmed
“To this end I have already met with Levelling-up secretary, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP and James Daly, MP for Bury.”
But Ms Firth is unsure if there is enough time for that to happen.
“Time is very short and despite a huge amount of work being done on a voluntary basis, it is currently not clear if a detailed enough bid could be formulated in the time available,” said Ms Firth.
“An expression of interest would need to be submitted by the 19th September and the last date for bids to be in is the 11th October 2023, hence I am talking to a special adviser about the Community Ownership Fund tomorrow.
“I do not want to raise fans expectations or put volunteer bid-writers to huge amounts of work generating yet more stress, unless there are reasonable prospects of success.”
Ms Firth insists she will continue to explore all possibilities in a bid to save Blues.
And that includes holding talks with Sports Minister Stuart Andrew.
“The third and final stream of work that has been on-going for a few months has been meeting the Sports Minister, Stuart Andrew, officials at the Department of Culture, Media, Sport to help fed-in and shape the Government’s new legislation on the White Paper in order to try and prevent other club’s facing the same off-field issues that Southend is facing,” said Ms Firth.
“This is important work but does not obviously help the here and now.”
But Ms Firth is fully aware just how much the club means to the community.
“I am very conscious of the uncertainty and exhaustion that this whole situation is having on fans and on the whole City,” said Ms Firth.
“I am also aware that this update will raise more questions, not all of which I can answer at the present time due to the sensitivities of the situation.
“However, I hope it shows that a huge amount of work is still on-going behind the scenes.
“Despite a very prolonged period of mismanagement, SUFC fans, supporters, players, Kevin Maher and Tom Lawrence, all continue to exceed expectations, and I look forward to being at Roots Hall on Tuesday night to support Kevin and the players, even if we can only field a reduced squad.”
