Scaffolding is up and specialist repairs to the Kursaal's dome have begun, 32 years after the listing inspector found most of the building derelict.
Scaffolding has gone up around the Kursaal and specialist repairs have started on its dome. Southend-on-Sea City Council announced the work on 16 September, calling it the first part of the restoration that the public can actually see (Southend-on-Sea City Council).
The council’s statement is short and it does not carry a cost, a programme, or a date for the building reopening. What it does confirm is that the work follows the appointment of Star Amusements as leaseholder earlier this year, and that the phased programme is about stabilising the building first: structural and heritage surveys, then long-term plans for its future as what the council calls “a leisure and entertainment destination”.
Councillor Matt Dent, cabinet member for business, culture, music and tourism, said: “It’s encouraging to see visible progress being made at the Kursaal following many years of uncertainty about the building’s future.”
What the listing actually says, and why the dome is the point
The Kursaal has been listed Grade II since 8 April 1994, under list entry 1236532. The official entry is worth reading, because it explains why the dome is where the money goes first (Historic England).
The building was put up in 1898 to 1899 by the architect George Sherrin. Historic England records that Sherrin completed the dome of the London Oratory after the death of its architect, and that the Kursaal’s dome is the only large dome he designed afterwards. The listing calls the Kursaal “Sherrin’s major work outside London” and “the principal architectural monument to Southend’s Edwardian boom period”.
The dome itself is described in detail: a square base carrying a Corinthian order, glazed between coupled columns, and above it eight round windows in scrolled surrounds, a lantern, an onion dome and a tall finial.
The listing also records what the building had already lost by 1994. At the time of inspection, the halls at the rear were “gutted and partly demolished”, the shop fronts were boarded, and the remainder of the interior was derelict. The central hall under the dome was the exception, and it still held its glass inner dome, a wrought iron balustrade to the upper gallery and elaborate plasterwork with tunnel vaults and foliate capitals.
That is the building being stabilised now. The survival of the interior under the dome is the reason the dome matters more than the frontage.
The Kursaal was once a 26-acre park
The listing gives a sense of the scale of what the surviving building is a fragment of. The amusement park it was built to serve originally covered 26 acres and included:
- a menagerie
- a music hall
- a funfair
- ninety shops
- fifty-three houses
The building on the corner of Southchurch Avenue is what is left, and Historic England notes it “appears largely unaltered”.
Who the leaseholder is
The council names the leaseholder only as Star Amusements. Companies House lists one active company of that exact name: Star Amusements Limited, company number 03082096, incorporated on 20 July 1995 and registered at 10 Towerfield Road, Shoeburyness. Its recorded business is “other amusement and recreation activities not elsewhere classified”, and its most recent accounts were made up to 31 August 2025 (Companies House).
The council has not published the lease terms, its length, or what the company has committed to do.
What it means for you
- If you walk or drive along Southchurch Avenue, expect scaffolding around the building and the dome hidden for the duration. The council has not said how long that will be.
- Nothing here is a reopening announcement. The council describes surveys and stabilisation work, and says long-term plans are still being developed.
- If you want to follow it properly, the planning register is the place any listed building consent or change of use would appear. Our guide to searching Southend’s planning portal explains how to set up a search and how long you get to comment.
What we will be watching
- whether a listed building consent application appears for the wider building
- the lease terms, which the council has not published
- any published cost, funding source or completion date
- whether the Kursaal appears in the council’s next capital monitoring report
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