Mass failure of traffic lights in Southend city centre

Multiple sets of traffic lights stopped working in Southend-on-Sea city centre on Monday evening. We began receiving reports of traffic lights being out at around 6:30pm.

The affected junctions where traffic lights were reported to not be working included:

• Victoria Circus
• Queensway by the Victoria Shopping Centre Multi-storey car park
• Queensway by York Road
• Southchurch Avenue onto Southend seafront
• The crossing by the Southend Sealife Adventure
• The junction next to the Kursaal on Southend seafront
• Sutton Road by the KFC
• Hamlet Court Road junction with London Road
• Bournemouth Park Road junction with Central Avenue

The cause of the mass failure is not yet known, although Southend City Council suggested it could be down to a power failure. Drivers were warned to approach the affected junctions with caution.

A spokesperson for Southend City Council said: “We are aware of this issue which we currently think may be due to a power failure. This has been reported to UK Power Networks and our contractor SWARCO is also on site this evening.”

The council recently received over £600k from the UK Government to upgrade traffic light systems and improve traffic flow across the city. The funding was issued after the council successfully made a bid to the ‘Green Light Fund’. The funding will be used for a number of projects over the next two years to upgrade junctions and install new traffic flow systems.

Work began recently in June 2024, carried out by SWARCO, the council’s traffic signal maintenance contractor and Marlborough, the highways contractor.