30 December 2024.
Dean Spears.
Welcome to the story of Sussex Bay.

Welcome to our first ever Sussex Bay blog.  This is a long read, a departure from our Linkedin paragraphs and snippets in our newsletters.  We go into some of the history of Sussex Bay and next steps. If lots of words isn’t your thing no problem, scroll down and check out the short films. As someone who likes to put others forward in the limelight, writing about yourself is a thoughtful process. So, I’ll start with my surroundings. I sit here with the Spanish part of my family in Madrid, in between Navidad (Christmas) and Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings), taking some time out to reflect back over the past year, and what a wonderful year it has been.  So many organisations and people have helped us with advice and support in our early days, thank you.

A year ago, week one into the job, whilst planning strategy and thinking carefully about our launch, I remember sitting around the Alcroft’s dining table in Brighton, with Ruth and Kate from Wayforward, thinking about if we should start our first ever Sussex Bay Linkedin account or not and how terrible it would be if we attracted zero followers (although I did think at the time that it would be kind of cool to have zero followers), and now we’ve attracted 1,700 Linkedin followers, 1,000 subscribers to our e-newsletter, 500 visitors per week day to our website (120,000 since website launch). We’re humbled, thank you.

We’re collaborating with people like you: people committed to give nature and people along our part of the world a chance and more than that, to thrive.  A year later, with appreciated advice from Anna Ford, we’ve started blogging, opened our BlueSky account and are working on our instagram account.  You might well be our first blog reader and if so, thank you.  We’ve also doubled the size of our organisation from one to two and soon to three, launched, delivered a Tedx Talk, are involved in around 60 projects and brand new research, are attracting high integrity funding and are doing what we said we would across our three focus areas, learning as we go, more about that later…

A year ago.

A year ago, as the only Sussex Bay employee, it was easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, to shape and then deliver the first ever regional vision for Sussex Bay (one hundred miles of coastline, from Selsey Bill to Camber Sands and everything in between for over one million residents) with only a year’s worth of very much appreciated funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to get going (we receive no local/national government funds).  Reflecting on the preceding thinking going back to 2019 led by Paul Brewer from Adur & Worthing Councils (one of the eleven Councils in Sussex Bay), Sussex Bay as a concept and soon to be project emerged, from collaboration amongst hundreds of groups, organisations.  I love how Sussex Bay emerged within local government as custodians of nature.  Back then, the Councils were deeply inspired by two local projects with (inter)-national reputations.  The Knepp Estate which has rewilded 951 hectares of land and seen massive increases in wildlife and biodiversity, and secondly, the work of the Sussex Inshore Fisheries Authority to introduce a 300 km2 large vessel trawler exclusion zone off West Sussex with the aim of giving the decimated historic kelp habitat and chance to recover.  

I was thinking of a similar scale and began to shape our work areas and also of the need to safeguard and protect our wonderful natural assets respectfully.  I started thinking about all of the good work underway with Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and if we could extend that whole, large, seascape approach further, to include our wonderful rivers, inter-tidal areas and ocean, with communities shaping the vision together.  Big ideas with limited resources.

What is Sussex Bay?  Three core focus areas.

We are funded externally and hosted in local government (Adur & Worthing Councils). Our vision is a thriving ecosystem. We want future generations to enjoy nature in the same way that we have, to fish sustainably, to enjoy bathing on the beach, swimming, walking on The Downs, visiting and earning a sustainable living, tracing back our wonderful coastal communities heritage and being proud to live, visit and work here.  Although there are brilliant people working in this space, there is no sustainable funding for the ocean and our rivers, nor one government department with ownership and it’s a crowded space with organisations regulating, competing for funds and all with equally valid perspectives.  

Whilst our emerging priorities are in the water, it would be wrong to ignore the challenges that people in Sussex face.  In Lewes, ahead of an introductory meeting with Sussex Community Foundation, I read carefully their comprehensive ‘Tackling poverty’ (2023) report, aimed at reducing poverty and disadvantage in our communities.  I was taken aback at statistics often talked about that note how 20, 25, 30 percent of residents in areas across Sussex Bay do not access the coastline despite it being a 10 minute walk away.  Speaking with some residents in Newhaven and Hastings out and about, it became clear that the cost of living was vital to them and quite rightly so. Later, speaking with Headteachers and partner organisations in Worthing, it came as no surprise as swimming lessons and school trips are reducing as a result of funding pressures, taking away an incentive and reason to visit.  Talking with numerous leaders of charities, there is a passion for communities who do not normally get involved in nature focused work to do so.  The need to make sure that Sussex Bay is inclusive and welcoming for all becomes a key concern.  

Turning our vision into reality: our three focus areas.

How can we do all of this with then one and now two and soon to be three employees?  I listened to opinions, ideas, agreements and disagreements about how Sussex Bay could help, and continue the collaboration in the future upon which we are founded.  During our launch in June 2024, with all of the wonderful speakers from their organisations, including Sam Zindel talking about Generation Restoration, on stage to a packed audience of 450, I outlined our three focus areas as a way to centre activity around funding, research and building participation:

1. Establishing and being home to the UKs Blue Natural Capital Lab: a safe space to attract high integrity funding as we work towards a £50M fund for Nature Recovery by 2050.

2. Ensuring that everything we do is research and science led as we develop a blueprint for seascape recovery (a voluntary marine extension to the LNRS).

3. Engaging communities and building participation around our work.

During our launch, Dr. Christopher Sandom from the University of Sussex with local artist Daniel Locke told the story of Sussex Bay through comic book art and how difficult environmental challenges are, and that there are no easy fixes nor quick solutions.  It’s tricky, putting right the wrong over the past 50 years for the next 50 years.  It’s only when I reflect back now that I realise that we are doing work in a way that has never been done in this way in the UK before. Equally, how all of the wonderful organisations out there working in nature and marine conservation will have their own inspiring story to tell.