Big Ideas, Real Impact.

In an area of 1.7 million residents across 100 hundred miles of coastline, the Head of Sussex Bay, Dean Spears, set Sussex Bay up and runs it, with support from the Seascape Research Led Delivery Lead, and a part time project coordinator, without public funds. You can read more about the team here.

We work with hundreds of existing and emerging community groups, residents, scientists, high integrity funders, businesses, education providers, regulators and more. The concept of Sussex Bay was developed from ideas and discussions with community groups working in the sea and in projects that explore the relationship between land and sea. Groups identified a need for radical collaboration.

Workshops with key stakeholders were undertaken during 2021, culminating in a webinar attended by over a 100 people from Sussex Bay.

We will continue to work with the communities across Sussex Bay and the team welcome new ideas. Much of our work can be developed in Sussex Bay and rolled out into other areas of the UK.

If you would like to get involved, please use the contact tab above and our team will reach out to you.

Sussex Bay supports nature recovery across Sussex, from Selsey Bill to Camber Sands, including its intertidal river systems, coastline and marine area out to 12 nautical miles.

The area is not yet precisely defined (intentionally at this stage), and will be the subject of further consideration and development.

This generational challenge to restore our rivers, coast and sea requires us to work at nature’s scale. Sussex Bay will work with all bodies, through highly open and collaborative communication, and effective formal partnership. We are currently working with the Crown Estate, Sussex local authorities, the Living Coast Biosphere, Greater Brighton Economic Board, Coast to Capital, Shoreham Port, Sussex Marine & Coastal Forum, Sussex Wildlife Trust and others to invite collaboration and alignment of goals. We are all proud and passionate about our Sussex home.

Our understanding of blue natural capital is emergent and its benefits largely unqualified and uncertified.

Long timescale for these benefits to be realised, the need to prove ‘additionality’, in addition to the complex marine governance framework are further challenges to funding. At the core of Sussex Bay’s mission to accelerate the recovery of the Sussex seascape, it seeks to address these challenges so that blended financing can be unlocked for nature.

The formation of the Blue Natural Capital Lab is Sussex Bay’s response. Recognising that a multi-faceted, iterative approach is needed, the lab has been conceived as a model to pose, explore and test the key questions that arise; where new infrastructure and demonstrator projects bring theories to life; where leading scientists are convened; and coastal communities and local businesses are engaged and can be part of solutions.

Adur & Worthing Councils commitment to carbon reduction (it declared a climate emergency in 2019), and subsequent Net Zero strategies acted as spur to consider the role of local nature recovery projects in the Councils overall climate response.

The Councils committed strategic and financial resources to develop an approach, recognising the remarkable opportunities for coastal local authority surrounded by South Downs and sea and its unique convening power as a local authority.

The opportunity for the Councils to play a broad role in enabling recovery at nature’s scale (not constrained to municipal boundaries) was clear to the joint administration, and Adur District Council made two key early land acquisitions (£1.2m) on the Adur River to show strong intent in the emerging field of ‘natural capital investment’ for nature recovery.

The Councils were deeply inspired by two local projects with national and international reputations. The Knepp Estate which has rewilded 951 hectares of farmland and seen massive increases in wildlife and biodiversity, and secondly the work of the Sussex Inshore Fisheries Authority to introduce a 300 km2 trawler exclusion zone off West Sussex.

Reaching out to and working with these projects, it became clear that there was both a need and opportunity to create a vision for the whole of the Sussex seascape - intertidal river zones, coast and sea. And with the emerging opportunities of “natural capital investment”, a local programme at the right scale could help unlock funding, support projects and leverage the wider social and economic benefits of nature restoration, helping drive a generational transition where coastal communities live and thrive alongside nature restored.

Workshops with key stakeholders were undertaken during 2021, culminating in a webinar attended by over a 100 people from along the Sussex coast.

The vision for Sussex Bay is widely understood and supported, and work has continued at strategic and project levels during 2022 and 2023 with funding from Defra, Coast to Capital, MMO Fisheries & Seafood Scheme and others.

In 2023 Sussex Bay received funding from Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and appointed a Head of Blue Natural Capital to lead the design and implementation of the UK’s first Blue Natural Capital Lab alongside running operations.

Rewilding Britain note the urgent need to reverse the catastrophic decline in marine biodiversity. Sea-based rewilding projects are far less common than those on land. The Blue Marine Foundation defines rewilding the sea as ​‘any effort to improve the health of the ocean by actively restoring habitats and species, or by leaving it alone to recover’.

Healthy seabed drive a richer marine ecology, so when habitats recover so does everything that relies upon it.

We are keen to explore expert-led rewilding as part of our developing Sussex Seascape Framework, which aims to balance approaches, sustainable activity in the sea and viewpoints over the years ahead.

For the last two years, Adur & Worthing Councils have been the hosts and incubators for Sussex Bay. In the coming years, it may be necessary to become a registered body - some of our work around investment models will help determine the best form for this and governance requirements.

We welcome conversations with all partners interested to explore this further.

We are watching the brilliant work at Plymouth, Jersey and elsewhere closely. Plymouth received funding of £9.5m to develop their Marine Park concept. What matters most at this stage is the development of partnership and public awareness raising, but it remains something of interest for the future.

Sussex Bay is not a charity nor do we receive public money and we are not funded by Council Tax or other tax. We are currently a project in Adur & Worthing Councils, externally funded by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Rewilding Britain. This means that, like many projects in local government, we subscribe to long standing governance arrangements there including how decisions are made. We collaborate with charities, the 11 Councils across Sussex Bay, NGOs and other types of high integrity organisations who often partner with us on external funding bids to help deliver parts of projects.

We are grateful to Researchers from UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL, IIPP) who are, at our request, and in our early days, producing options for the future governance arrangements of Sussex Bay which will be helpful for us to consider as we develop. As part of their project, they have been seeking input from stakeholders.

We will provide updates here.

Yes, the words together, Sussex Bay, and the Sussex Bay logo are registered trademarks®, owned by Adur & Worthing Councils. Please contact the team directly if you would like to chat more: hello@sussexbay.org.uk

We are not currently a grant maker. We publish how we receive and use our funds in our annual report. We adhere to local government procurement and spending criteria.