Shoebury Conservatives have today urged Anne Chalk to Shoeburyness Ward residents as local Conservatives have discovered a Labour Party website, http://www.southend-on-sea-labour.org.uk/ which links directly to the Shoebury ‘Independent Party’.

Anne Chalk, recently declared that she is now standing for the Independent Party in Shoeburyness Ward at the 2010 local elections, after standing as a Labour candidate in Shoeburyness for many years.

On hearing the news Cllr Roger Hadley commented:

"I urge Anne to come clean to Shoebury residents as she is quite clearly having difficulty breaking away from her Labour roots.

"Support for Labour has been eroding over the years in Shoebury as the Labour party moves from one crisis and scandle to another.

"It is a standing joke amongst the Labour Group on the council that if she was elected in Shoeburyness she would immediately cross the floor and join her Labour colleagues. This revelation does nothing dispel this rumour.”

Anne Chalk was once elected to Southend Council as a Labour councillor in the 2001 local elections but had to force a by-election as she was a teacher employed by the borough at the time.