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Hastings town with the sea and castle railway in the background

£1m goodwill fund for Hastings

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. Find out more, including where the money is going.

Who has benefited from the Goodwill Fund?

Watch this short video to learn more about the Goodwill Fund and how it's helping those who live and work in Hastings and St Leonards.

Grants for community projects

A community panel, made up of members of the Hastings and St Leonards communities, and local youth groups, shared their views to guide Sussex Community Foundation and Southern Water on the priority areas that the fund should focus on. The criteria, application and grant giving process has been managed by Sussex Community Foundation.

Due to the overwhelming number of applications that we received during the first round of grants for community projects, the community panel took the decision that there would be two rounds of funding available. You can find a list of the projects awarded grants below 

Sussex Community Foundation
woman gardening in at a community garden
Play Grants for community projects video

Local events and festivals

We 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 also sponsored 12 free “Inflatafun” family swim sessions at Summerfields Leisure Centre, Hastings, from April – September 2025.

People watching local music outside at sunset

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

woman making a coffee at a local coffee shop

Community project grant awards  

The community project grant award recipients from the first and second application windows 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 in the first round 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)

The grants awarded to local community groups, projects, Charitable Incorporated Companies (CIC), Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIO) and charities in the second round totalled over £130,000.

  • 18 Hours Limited
  • AMAZE
  • BreatheEasy Eastbourne
  • Brighton Therapy Centre
  • Care for the Carers
  • Citizens Advice 1066
  • Dance Hastings CIO
  • East Sussex Recovery Alliance (ESRA)
  • Education Consortium Training Sussex
  • ExploreTheArch Theatre Company Ltd
  • Family Support Work
  • Hastings and Rother YMCA
  • Hastings Chinese Association
  • Just Friends
  • Leisure and Learning (Hastings) Ltd
  • Naturebytes CIC
  • Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of Holy
  • Trinity Hastings
  • Project Art Works
  • Project Rewild CIC
  • Space for Yew CIC
  • Spun Glass Theatre
  • Stables Trust Ltd
  • Stay up Late
  • Stop Look Listen CIC t/a Picnic
  • Sussex Association for Spina Bifida & Hydrocephalus
  • TechResort Community Interest Company
  • The Bright Foundation
  • The Combe Valley Countryside Park CIC
  • Umbrella Sussex
  • Warming up the Homeless
  • Women’s Voice

Why we offered this fund

We 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.  

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.”