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£1m goodwill fund for Hastings
Learn more about the Hastings and St Leonards £1 million goodwill fund, where the money is going and how to apply for a grant.
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Who can benefit from the goodwill fund?
Businesses and community groups in the Hastings and St Leonards area are receiving a share of a £1 million goodwill fund following recent weather-related flooding and loss of water supply incidents.
“We care about Hastings and its community, with many of our colleagues working and living in the area, so we hope this gesture will help make a positive difference following such challenging times.” - Tim McMahon
The £1m goodwill fund will be shared between
Grants for community projects recipients
The community project grant award recipients from the first application window for the Goodwill Fund for Hastings and St Leonards are listed below.
The grants awarded to local community groups, projects, Charitable Incorporated Companies (CIC), Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIO) and charities totalled over £270,000.
- Arts on Prescription CIC
- Better Braybrooke (Environmental Watch)
- Clean Water Action Group (CWAG) Hastings and St Leonards
- Counselling Plus Community
- Education Futures Trust
- Eggtooth Project
- Hastings and St Leonards Men’s Shed
- Hastings Emergency Action Response Team CIO
- Lifesize CIC
- MSL Discover
- Radiator Arts
- Seaview Project
- Sensory Soft Play
- Southwater Area Community Centre Ltd
- Sustenance
- Transom Trust
- Veterans’ Growth
- West Hill & District Community Association
- XTRAX (Young People’s Centre)
Grants for community projects
The second application window for community project grants from the Hastings and St Leonards Goodwill Fund will open on 17 April 2025. The deadline for applications for this round is Friday 30 May 2025.
Community groups and voluntary sector organisations can find out more about how to apply for a grant by coming to our Application Clinic on 28 April, at Central Hall, 6 Bank Building, Station Road, Hastings, TN34 1NG. To support grant applications, a team from Southern Water and Sussex Community Foundation will be on hand from 10am to 12 noon to help answer any questions.
A community panel, made up of members of the Hastings and St Leonards communities, and local youth groups have shared their views to guide Sussex Community Foundation on the priority areas that the fund should focus on over the next 12 months. The criteria, application and grant giving process will be managed by Sussex Community Foundation with further information on their website.
Due to the overwhelming number of applications that we received during the application window of the first cycle of grant giving for Community Projects from the Goodwill Fund for Hastings and St Leonards, the Community Panel has taken the decision that there will only be two rounds of funding available.
Local events and festivals
We’ve donated £120,000 to local events and festivals taking place in Hastings and St Leonards in 2024 and 2025 including:
- Old Town Carnival Week
- Nearly on the Beach fundraiser
- Hidden Beach Hastings Music Festival
- Hastings Pride
- Skinny Sunday Youth Festival
- Coastal Currents
- Hastings Seafood Wine and Music Festival
- Hastings Storytelling Festival
- Hastings Bonfire Celebrations
- The St Leonards Frost Fair
- Hasting Fat Tuesday 2025
- Fringe Festival 2025
- Jack in the Green 2025
- Hastings Garden Festival 2025
- St Leonards Festival, Warrior Square 2025
- Hastings Pirate Weekend 2025
We have also sponsored 12 free “Inflatafun” family swim sessions at Summerfields Leisure Centre, Hastings, from April – September 2025.
You and your family can take part in Free family swim | Hastings and St Leonards.
Local business payments
Nearly £530,000 has been given to support local businesses. All businesses that are eligible for payments have now been contacted directly
Why we're offering this fund
We've supported this fund in recognition of the disruption and distress caused by the early May loss of water supply, and the ongoing local improvements to prevent further weather-related flooding incidents in Hastings town centre following two events in 2023.
Tim McMahon, Director of Water – who led the company’s response to the loss of water supply in early May – said: “We recognise that the services we provide have not met all of the expectations of our customers in St Leonards and Hastings in recent months – and we are very sorry.
“This community has faced both weather-related floods and a major loss of water supply, and we have seen the toll this has taken on local businesses and households. We accept that we need to put things right so far as the community and businesses in Hastings and St Leonards are concerned, and therefore want to give something back as a meaningful goodwill gesture.