I know that UK business enterprises come in for a lot of stick from time to time (often rightly so) but I think Stobarts have handled this project extremely well.
They have managed something which many people - me included - didn't really think was possible nowadays. In effect they have built a new, international standard airport in an urban area on the site of a rundown airfield which survived only by virtue of the hangars remaining from its glory days thus enabling its MRO activities to thrive. For decades SEN lived on its history and just about refused to die, although it came close to it once or twice. Stobarts had not only the vision to see what might be achieved but put up the cash to make it happen; not just to create an airport adequate to meet the basic needs of potential airline customers, but offering something which wasn't available at other London airports. Chief among these was the goal of processing outbound pax through the terminal as speedily as possible and ensuring that they could offer pax very rapid transit times between arriving on-chocks and them leaving the car park/getting on the London train. Together with starting afresh with state-of-the-art navaids and lighting and squeezing the maximum distances out of the physically constrained runway strip they've created something truly fit to call itself London/Southend Airport.
OK, I know some will rightly say that even the extended runway places considerable constraints on the types of aircraft and destinations that are commercially viable, but I feel it is quite sufficient to meet the declared aim of 2 million pax per annum.
Well done to all the team at Stobart/SEN and those supporters who have also done their bit in convincing the local population that, on balance, a rejunevated SEN was a 'good thing' and who helped to counter the inaccurate, extremist propaganda of the main opposition group, SAEN.