Southend City Council to restrict fast food outlets near schools

A council has been considering restricting fast food restaurants being built near schools after it found 22.7% of pupils starting school were overweight or obese.

Southend-on-Sea City Council addressed the figures at a cabinet meeting on Monday, which also included that 33.8% of Southend children were obese or overweight by the time they left primary school.

Council officers intended to ask residents for their views on a Local Plan which would grant the authority powers to limit fast food outlets near schools.

Maxine Sadza, the cabinet member for social care and healthier communities at the authority, said she has heard about instances of children ordering takeaways “to the school gates”.

With 219 fast food outlets in the city, Southend has a higher number than the national average and the restaurants were concentrated among the most deprived areas of the city.

Sadza acknowledged that the rise in food delivery apps has meant physical proximity of outlets was only part of the problem, and she has urged leading companies to avoid targeting children with their marketing.

In his latest Annual Public Health Report, Krishna Ramkhelawon, Southend’s director of public health, said: “Post-pandemic, the struggle to address childhood obesity has shown no sign of easing.”

Therefore, he said, the council has agreed to a wider childhood obesity strategy, which would look at diet and nutrition, physical activity and reshaping an unhealthy food environment.

Genesis Ali, a nutritionist based in Essex, said he has heard about children ordering fast food to addresses next to schools.

“I actually have a friend who works as a delivery driver and apparently certain outlets… actually do not allow them to deliver outside to schools directly.

“So the children now have a hack whereby they will actually get it delivered to a residential property that may be adjacent or near the school, unfortunately.

Mr Ali said his children were in school and he heard that the food was “quite substandard”.

“I’m not surprised they would want to have a takeaway,” he said.

He added that while the schools need to improve their meals, it was the parents who shaped their children.

“We are the gatekeepers, we buy the food, we are responsible… children don’t do what we tell them, they do what they see,” he said.

Samia Darr, a mother who lives in Chigwell, Essex, agreed with Mr Ali: “Children aren’t earning money, the money is coming from the parents.”

“We have parental controls over the phones, over internet, [maybe delivery apps] can introduce something that,” she added.