The Government has announced that all Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), including SEEDA, will close by 31 March 2012.
Responsibility for economic development and regeneration in England is being passed onto successor bodies, including Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and central Government departments
Our objective is to ensure a professional and cost effective closure by this date. We have pledged to work closely with our partners, contractors and stakeholders to ensure that the past and future economic benefits of key programmes and assets continue to deliver the greatest economic value for the South East and value for money for the taxpayer.
Please click here for more details about our closure plan, transition arrangements and successor organisations.
In action: Sussex: Key activities
Gatwick Diamond
The Gatwick Diamond is a business-led public private sector partnership, which aims to facilitate and coordinate the actions necessary to maintain a vibrant economy. The partnership has a vision that,
"by 2016 the Gatwick Diamond will be a world class, internationally
recognised business location achieving sustainable prosperity”.
There have been major advances in planning, transport improvements and other development opportunities that will help realise this vision.
For more information, please visit the Gatwick Diamond website.
University Centre – Crawley
The University of Brighton, Crawley Borough Council and Central Sussex College, are taking a lead role in the creation of a University Centre in the heart of Crawley. The University Centre will support educational attainment and progression across the Gatwick Diamond and offer more commercial focused higher education programmes.
Coastal West Sussex – Education-led Regeneration
SEEDA, together closely with the University of Chichester, secured a £2m investment for the redevelopment of the University of Chichester’s Bognor Regis campus. SEEDA’s investment, which is part of a £30million 10 year redevelopment programme, has leveraged £6million HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) support to enhance the University’s business engagement activities, develop stronger business collaborations and provide facilities for new business startups. This refocusing of the University’s work will ultimately lead to increased productivity, business innovation and investment in Bognor Regis and along the West Sussex coast.
Shoreham
SEEDA worked closely with partners to help realise major economic development opportunities through the redevelopment of the Shoreham Port area. The long-term vision for the project is to create over 7,000 new jobs and up to 10,000 new homes, with an emphasis on economic development of the wider coastal area resulting in new business investment.
Find out more about Shoreham here.
Rural Sussex
SEEDA was committed to protecting the environment and lifestyle of rural Sussex while encouraging diversification to stimulate the rural economy and support rural communities. SEEDA managed a £30million European fund through the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). Local partners, through the three Leader programmes across Sussex, will determine how the funding will be used to have the greatest impact on addressing local issues.
Innovation and Growth Teams
The programme will provide grant funding to a regional network of eight partnerships. Two teams will cover Sussex; one in West Sussex and East Surrey to include the Gatwick Diamond and the other covering East Sussex and Brighton and Hove. These teams will create communities of innovation and growth, delivering specialist services to businesses that have potential for significant growth.
SEEDA invested in Hastings through a five point plan which has resulted in a University (700+ students), innovation centre, creative media centre, commercial heart to the town (offices and business developments), housing (millennium community), and rail and road upgrading.
SEEDA set up and led a task force to improve transport links, education, inward investment, business development and broadband connectivity with an initial £35million investment. A further £10million was committed through the Corporate Plan period 2008-11, primarily to develop the Enviro21 Business Park. Over the lifetime of the project a total of £400 million of public and private sector funding was secured, developing a model for sustainability.
Hastings is already reaping the benefits. For example, the Creative Media Centre in Hastings has been open for two years and is 90% full with 38 businesses supporting 300 jobs.
Since 2002, average earnings in Hastings have risen from 68% to 82% of the regional average, business VAT registrations have improved and approximately 1,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded.
Newhaven Business Centre
Opened in 2007, this is a £4.4million development by Lewes District Council in partnership with Basepoint, and with funding from SEEDA. The site is located at Denton Island, close to the town centre, and adjacent to Denton Island Training Centre and a new community nursery providing childcare. This development provides some 2,040 sqm (22,000 sq ft) of office and workshop accommodation to businesses.
More information is available here.
University Centre – Hastings
This was one of the first projects to be delivered through SeaSpace in September 2003. UCH is managed by the University of Brighton and courses are commercially focused, designed in partnership with local employers. The University Centre is situated in the centre of Hastings in the refurbished and redeveloped BT building and currently has over 700 students studying there.
Ropetackle
The Ropetackle waterfront development in the centre of Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex has become a pioneering model for the sustainable redevelopment of derelict sites throughout the South East. Developed by SEEDA in partnership with Berkeley Homes, this flagship venture is an integral feature of the wider regeneration strategy for the entire Shoreham Maritime area.
Find out more about this project here.
Preston Barracks
The Preston Barracks site is of strategic importance for employment and is an urban gateway to Brighton and Hove from the 'Academic Corridor' (close to Brighton and Sussex Universities). A project steering group made up of representatives from the City Council, SEEDA and the Brighton and Hove Regeneration Partnership commissioned Gillespies (in partnership with GVA Grimley and Oxford Architects) to prepare a master plan for the site. The groundbreaking, contemporary proposal by a consortium of Wilson Bowden, CDHA (part of Hyde Housing) and Broadway Malayan Architects, will create over 1,000 local jobs, 412 homes of which 40% will be affordable, 20,000 sqm of business space with an innovation centre and community facilities.
Economic Challenge Investment Fund
The University of Chichester and the University of Sussex were both successful in separate bids under the Government’s Economic Challenge Investment Fund (ECIF). The bids from both Universities will support activities that will enable them to attract top graduates to a commercially focused agenda and retain them in the local workforce. The Sussex Internship Programme was created in partnership with the University of Sussex and will provide 100 graduate internships across the full spectrum of the media companies in Sussex over the next 18 months.
