Southend Airshow won't be going ahead this year as the Borough Council decide not to fund it.

The Borough Council last night (Thursday, February 28) decided to scrap the airshow as an annual event to save £130,000 a year.

It comes after a Facebook campaign to save the airshow was set up and has gained around 15,000 'likes'. 

Demonstrations took place outside Southend Borough Council's offices before the meeting last night to show their support for the campaign. 

Tom Curtis is one of those behind 'Save Southend Airshow', he has told Heart: "We're disappointed at this decision, the council haven't really conviced us that they've killed the airshow for the right reasons, they seem to have taken one of the best things about Southend and thrown it away for apparently little savings.

"Nothing they have said has convinced me they were ever interested in saving the airshow.

"One of the interesting comments by one of the councillors is that Southend has already lost over 100 businesses this year, times are tough for the town, especially for small businesses, which makes the council voting against the airshow even more questionable, by their own figures it does bring revenue and people into the town."

Council Leader Nigel Holdcroft told Heart: "We've got to find about £10.5 million from our revenue budget by way of economies, the airshow costs over £130,000 a year, we've been struggling, we've been unable to find a sponsor, therefore that was one of the things that we identified that this year we would have to cut.

"That is not to say that we won't look to reinstate it in the future, if we can find a commercial sponsor, but for this coming year there will be no Southend Airshow.

"It's been going on for a long time and I know a lot of us are very emotionally attached to it. By the same token there has been a growing feeling by some in the town that it has had its day and that certainly if the weather conditions aren't great attendance can be poor, on other occassions, you can have a good weather day and actually businesses can say they do worse because of the airshow as it blocks their usual customers reaching their businesses."

The Save Southend Airshow group are now looking to bring it back for 2014, Mr Curtis said: "The community has already said that they are more than happy to pitch in and set up fundraisers, that is something that we are looking to do, but of course we also need to focus on getting corporate sponsorship and that could be from local businesses or elsewhere."

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