Southend's council boss has delivered a blistering attack on BBC television for ignoring the Queen's historic visit to the borough.

Chief executive and town clerk George Krawiec fired the broadside yesterday (Thursday) after Newsroom South East cut Southend out of its coverage of the Royal visit.

Last Friday night's broadcast just centred on Basildon where the Queen and Prince Philip officially opened the town's new glass bell tower.

The bulletin failed to mention that the Queen had even been to Southend.

In a candid and outspoken letter to the BBC, Mr Krawiec said: "I write as much in exasperation as disappointment and annoyance as to the lack of coverage of the Queen's visit to Southend.

"If you watched your programme, you would have thought the Queen had just visited Basildon as there was no mention of Southend whatsoever."

Mr Krawiec insisted Southend was worth a lot more. He hailed the Royal visit as a great day for the town and thanked the public for turning out to give the Queen and Prince Philip such a "wonderful" welcome.

His letter added: "The Southend conurbation is the largest outside London in your region and the lack of coverage of Southend seems to be a lack of regard for this part of the region.

"This is being reinforced by the only very occasional appearance of Southend on the weather map."

He urged Newsroom South East to give "far more attention" to the borough in the future.

"If you don't," he added, "people will be rightly saying that the channels to watch are Meridian and Carlton which gave a balanced coverage of Basildon and Southend, putting your lack of attention to Southend to considerable shame."

Mr Krawiec will be reporting his disappointment to councillors on April 19.

A BBC spokesman said: "We are sorry that the chief executive of Southend feels we haven't covered the Queen's visit as fully as he would have liked.

"We were certainly not intent on disadvantaging Southend, but I am sure your readers will appreciate that in a region of some 12.8m people, it is difficult for us to be in all the places we want to be on any given day.

"However, we do look forward to covering many stories in Southend in the months to come."

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