Sussex And The City is the essential podcast for anyone curious about the future of place, power, and prosperity in Sussex.
Hosted by Richard Freeman, each episode unpacks the people, policies and economics shaping one of the UK's most complex and compelling regions.
Focused on forthcoming devolution and local government reorganisation, we're telling the Sussex and Brighton story in the 21st century.
From climate action and infrastructure to growth, enterprise and identity, this is where business leaders, community voices, policy wonks and creative thinkers share bold ideas for what Sussex could become.
Join us for lively conversations, expert insights and provocative questions at a time of major change — whether you're in Brighton or Battle, Crawley or Chichester.
New episodes weekly. Always independent. Of, from, and for, Sussex.
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#67: Sussex Is A 'Thing' And We Wunt Be Druv. But What Do We Want Instead?
Season 2 · Episode 35
Monday, October 26, 2026 • Duration 34:10
The Sussex And The City Podcast Episode #67
Sussex Is A 'Thing' And We Wunt Be Druv. But What Do We Want Instead?
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: John V. Willshire – strategic designer, writer and founder of Smithery
Episode summary
Sussex is a thing.
Obviously. But what sort of thing? And who gets to decide?
My guest this week is John V. Willshire, a strategic designer, writer and founder of Smithery, a consultancy that has spent 15 years helping organisations think differently about change.
John's guiding principle is to help people make things people want, rather than make people want things. And recently, he's been applying that philosophy to Sussex.
Drawing on the work of French philosopher Bruno Latour, John explores the ancient meaning of the word thing: a gathering of people brought together to discuss matters of shared concern.
So Sussex isn't simply a geographical boundary or an administrative arrangement. It's a complicated collection of communities, landscapes, histories, institutions, relationships and competing priorities.
And devolution is asking us to start treating all of that as one strategic region.
John and I have been exploring some of these questions through the Sussex Futures Network, a deliberately informal platform for bringing people together to experiment with different ways of thinking about Sussex's future.
One of those experiments has involved playing card games.
Inspired by the nineteenth-century Chartist movement and a contemporary charter-building game developed by Our House, John and collaborators have created a Sussex-specific game that invites people to imagine different forms of democracy.
Players combine cards showing who might hold power – from mayors, councillors and citizens' assemblies to rivers and even beavers – with cards showing how that power might be exercised.
They then imagine the worst possible outcomes, or dreadocracy, and the best possible outcomes, or dreamocracy.
It's playful and often absurd and very revealing.
Because when people are invited to experiment with democracy, rather than simply respond to proposals somebody else has written, they begin to recognise that political structures aren't fixed. They're things people have designed, and therefore things people might redesign.
We've played the game at Colonnade House in Worthing and Bull House in Lewes, the former home of Thomas Paine, whose writing helped inspire the American Revolution. There's something appropriate about sitting in that building, more than 250 years later, imagining different ways political power might work.
The conversation also takes us into the recent history of the Sussex Charter, written in 2006 by local resident Ian Steedman, and the establishment of Sussex Day on 16th June.
John finds something liberating in the discovery that a document which feels like an ancient declaration of Sussex identity was actually invented less than twenty years ago.
If somebody could invent a Sussex Charter, what else might we invent?
Could Sussex Day become an annual opportunity to discuss the future rather than simply celebrate the past? Could schools, community groups, businesses and councils experiment with different forms of participation? And could the new strategic authority build curiosity and play into the way it engages people?
Running through the conversation is that famous Sussex motto, "We wunt be druv."
John sees it as something more useful than a nostalgic declaration of stubbornness. It's permission to do things differently.
But there's an important question underneath that independent spirit.
It's one thing to insist that we won't be told what to do. It's quite another to work out what we want instead.
And that means bringing more people into the conversation, including those who wouldn't ordinarily attend a consultation, read a strategy document or think that local democracy has much to do with them.
Towards the end of our conversation, John offers a provocation.
What if Sussex's biggest export in fifteen years was play?
Not simply games or entertainment, but play as a serious method for solving problems, challenging assumptions, imagining alternatives and bringing people together.
This is a conversation about design, democracy, Thomas Paine, Sussex identity, devolution and the possibility that our future doesn't have to be something somebody else has already decided.
Because democracy isn't simply something we have.
It's something we do.
---
This episode is brought to you by Be Business Energy Wise
Be Business Energy Wise is a fully funded programme helping East Sussex businesses take control of energy costs and make smarter sustainability decisions.
Businesses can access free practical one-to-one support, detailed on-site energy assessments where eligible, and workshops covering energy efficiency, sustainability marketing and reducing waste through the circular economy.
You don't need an existing sustainability strategy or specialist knowledge. The programme helps businesses understand where they are now, what could make a difference and what's worth doing next.
Be Business Energy Wise is funded by the Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority and East Sussex County Council, managed by East Sussex County Council and delivered by Always Possible.
John's career in strategic design and the philosophy behind Smithery
Why Sussex is a thing, and what that actually means
How devolution is bringing together a complicated collection of communities and identities
The origins and ambitions of the Sussex Futures Network
Why democracy should be something people do, rather than simply something they have
The surprising history of the Sussex Charter and Sussex Day
What "We wunt be druv" might mean for the future of Sussex
The influence of the Chartist movement and Thomas Paine
How the Sussex democracy game works
Imagining dreadocracy and dreamocracy
Why rivers, wildlife and beavers might have a place in democratic conversations
Playing with democracy at Bull House in Lewes
How games could involve people who don't normally engage with politics
Why Sussex Day could become an annual conversation about the future
How councils and the strategic authority might embrace experimentation
Whether Sussex could become known as a place where serious play drives change
About the guest
John V. Willshire is a strategic designer, writer and founder of Smithery, an independent strategic design practice established in 2011.
Previously Chief Innovation Officer at PHD Media in London, John works with organisations to explore possible futures, develop new ideas and turn complex challenges into practical experiments.
His clients have included the BBC, LEGO, Unilever, Wellcome and the United Nations Development Programme. He also created Artefact Cards, a hands-on tool for creative thinking, and has taught innovation and future thinking at IED Barcelona and the Royal College of Art.
Although a native Scot, John has lived in Sussex for nearly twenty years and is helping develop the Sussex Futures Network, exploring how design, play and participation might shape the county's democratic future.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: John V. Willshire Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
Get involved
sussexandthecity.info – episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex.
sussexintelligence.com – independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex.
#66: Is Sussex Becoming The Capital Of Better Business?
Season 2 · Episode 34
Sunday, October 18, 2026 • Duration 38:59
The Sussex And The City Podcast
Episode # 66
Is Sussex Becoming The Capital Of Better Business?
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Demi Heath – Founder of Hearth Sustainability, B Corp consultant and Co-Chair of Brighton B Local
🔍 Episode summary
What if the thing that makes Sussex economically distinctive isn't simply what our businesses produce, but how they choose to operate?
We spend a great deal of time talking about growth. How to attract investment, create jobs, increase productivity, support entrepreneurs and make Sussex more competitive. These are central questions for the emerging Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority, which is developing a long-term approach to prosperity across the region.
What sort of businesses do we actually want to grow?
And could Sussex become somewhere recognised not just for successful businesses, but for businesses that take their responsibilities to people, communities and the environment seriously?
Demi Heath thinks it could.
Born and raised in Portslade, with several years spent living and working in New Zealand, Demi is the founder of Hearth Sustainability, a certified B Corp consultancy helping businesses become more sustainable, resilient and socially responsible.
She is also a registered B Consultant with B Lab UK, Co-Chair of Brighton B Local, co-founder of the Sussex Impact Pathway and a member of the Brighton & Hove Economic Growth Board.
Demi has helped more than 30 businesses through the B Corp process and works with organisations of different sizes to understand how environmental, social and governance considerations can become part of everyday business decisions.
And Sussex is proving to be fertile ground.
There are around 90 certified B Corps across Sussex, representing everything from independent businesses to professional services firms and larger organisations. Brighton & Hove has one of the UK's largest concentrations outside London, while the South Downs National Park has approximately 18 B Corps – understood to be more than any other UK national park.
🎯 In this episode 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#65: What An Outside Investor Sees In The Sussex Economy
Season 2 · Episode 33
Sunday, October 11, 2026 • Duration 34:02
The Sussex And The City Podcast
Episode #65
What An Outside Investor Sees In The Sussex Economy
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Ian Jolley – entrepreneur, investor and owner of Agricom
🔍 Episode summary
What does Sussex look like to somebody who doesn't already live here, work here or know how the local economy operates?
We spend an enormous amount of time talking about how Sussex should present itself to the outside world. We want to attract investment, develop a stronger economic identity, champion our businesses and persuade people that this is somewhere they should come to build things.
But how often do we ask somebody who has actually made that decision what they found when they arrived?
Ian Jolley wasn't particularly looking to invest in Sussex.
He lives in Cheshire, has spent around 30 years working in transport and logistics, and is building a growing group of businesses specialising in commercial vehicle repairs and truck building. His operations already included P Leake Commercial Repairs in Telford and Collins Truck Builders in Essex when an opportunity arose to acquire Agricom, a long-established commercial and agricultural vehicle repair business near Petworth, West Sussex.
The previous owners were retiring, the business fitted Ian's expansion strategy, and Sussex became the location of his third acquisition almost by accident.
Then something unexpected happened.
Ian began spending time in rural West Sussex and discovered a business culture that felt quite different from the one he knew elsewhere.
Not necessarily less ambitious. Not unproductive. Just a different pace.
Where his businesses further north could feel relentlessly focused on doing more, faster, Ian found that people in Sussex sometimes approached decisions more deliberately. They still wanted to grow, but seemed to spend more time thinking about whether an idea was right before rushing into it.
🎯 In this episode 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#64: What Would A Sussex Housebuilding Revolution Actually Take?
Season 2 · Episode 32
Sunday, October 4, 2026 • Duration 36:52
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #64
What Would A Sussex Housebuilding Revolution Actually Take?
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Donna Cezair – Chief Executive, Worthing Homes
🔍 Episode summary
Sussex has a housing crisis. That is easy to agree on.
Thousands of households are waiting for social housing, living in temporary accommodation or trying to survive in a private housing market that has become unaffordable to people on perfectly ordinary incomes. At the same time, Sussex is under pressure to build substantially more homes while protecting some of the most valuable landscapes in the country.
The difficult bit starts when you ask how.
Who actually builds social housing? What is a housing association? Where does its money come from? Why is "affordable rent" sometimes 80% of the market rate? Why did councils transfer thousands of homes to housing associations? And if the need is so obvious, why can't we simply build a great many more?
Donna Cezair has spent nearly 40 years working in social housing and is now Chief Executive of Worthing Homes, which owns around 4,000 properties and serves approximately 10,000 customers.
Her starting point is that a good home is the cornerstone of a healthy and productive life.
But housing doesn't exist in isolation.
Building another estate on the edge of a town achieves rather less if residents can't reach jobs, there aren't enough schools or GPs, public transport is poor and the neighbourhood itself has no real sense of place.
So what for devolution?
The emerging Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority will increasingly think across housing, transport, infrastructure, skills and economic growth at a scale Sussex has rarely used before. Eventually, a mayor will operate within that system too.
🎯 In this episode 🏠 So what actually is a housing association? 👤 About Donna Cezair 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#63: Sussex Could Become A Global Nature Recovery Hotspot
Season 2 · Episode 31
Sunday, September 27, 2026 • Duration 31:19
The Sussex And The City Podcast
Episode 63
Sussex Could Become A Global Nature Recovery Hotspot
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Rob Alcroft – co-founder of Wayforward
🔍 Episode summary
This is a conversation we recorded more than a year ago. Oddly, it feels more relevant now than it did then.
Back in July 2025, Sussex devolution was still largely something we talked about in the future tense. One of the questions Rob Alcroft and I wrestled with was whether a new strategic authority – and eventually a mayor – would see nature as something sitting off to the side of the growth agenda, or whether it might become part of our definition of prosperity itself.
Quite a lot has happened since.
Over the summer, climate action conveners Cat Fisher, Victoria Ramsden, Cathy Shutt and Paul Steedman brought together people from businesses, community organisations, academia and environmental networks from across Sussex to challenge the emerging Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority's definition of prosperity.
Their argument was that prosperity shouldn't mean economic growth alone. It should mean people, the economy and nature thriving together.
An open letter making that case attracted 213 signatures from a wide range of organisations and individuals. And the language now being used in briefings on the emerging strategy describes prosperity as a Sussex where people, place, the economy and nature are resilient and thrive together, now and in the future. Climate resilience has also been described as one of the strategy's priorities.
We're not suggesting one letter magically rewrote regional policy. It didn't. But it is a useful example of why these conversations matter while new institutions are still taking shape – and what can happen when people make a clear and practical case for doing something differently.
Which brings us back to Rob.
Rob is co-founder of Wayforward, a social-purpose strategic consultancy specialising in stakeholder engagement. The organisation has been deeply involved in nature recovery across Sussex, including helping shape the original vision for Sussex Bay and leading engagement around the Local Nature Recovery Strategies for East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove.
🎯 In this episode 👤 About Rob Alcroft 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#62: Why Sussex And Hampshire May Need Each Other
Season 2 · Episode 30
Sunday, September 20, 2026 • Duration 33:49
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #62
Why Sussex And Hampshire May Need Each Other
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Hannah Lazell – political and public affairs consultant and former Local Government Association adviser
🔍 Episode summary
For someone growing up in Havant in Hampshire, as Hannah Lazell did, Portsmouth (Hampshire) and Chichester (West Sussex) were simply two nearby places you went to. Jobs cross the border. Businesses cross it. The defence and aerospace economy around Portsmouth spills into West Sussex. The South Downs crosses it. And anyone who has attempted the A27 through Chichester and Arundel knows that transport problems are indifferent to local government boundaries.
Yet Sussex and Hampshire have generally been expected to think about their economic futures separately.
Devolution might start to change that.
Hannah is a political and public affairs consultant who has worked in Parliament, advised the Labour team in the House of Lords and spent seven years at the Local Government Association. She now lives in Portsmouth, which makes her well placed to compare two neighbouring areas going through similar upheavals at similar times.
And this is actually our second attempt at this conversation. We first interviewed Hannah last year. Politics moved so quickly that the episode became obsolete before we could use it. We tried again in July. Inevitably, things changed again.
Since this recording, the Government has put local government reorganisation under review, including pausing the process in West Sussex and Hampshire. Devolution itself, however, continues. Sussex and Brighton has its strategic authority; Hampshire and the Solent now has one too. Both are currently heading towards mayoral elections in 2028.
That leaves Hannah broadly optimistic about devolution, but with an important warning: most people still don't really know what any of this means.
Even among politically engaged people, she encounters uncertainty about what a strategic authority is and what a mayor will actually do. We are creating new democratic identities while many people are still working out what the existing layers of local government are responsible for.
🎯 In this episode 💬 What Hannah says 👤 About Hannah Lazell 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#61: What Political Shake-ups Mean For Sussex
Season 2 · Episode 29
Sunday, September 13, 2026 • Duration 38:25
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #61
What Political Shake-ups Mean For Sussex
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: John Milne MP – Liberal Democrat MP for Horsham
🔍 Episode summary
This conversation was recorded when the argument about local government reorganisation in Sussex was mostly about what shape the new councils would take.
Since then, the argument has changed.
The Government has paused the process and put proposals back under review, including plans affecting East Sussex, Brighton & Hove and West Sussex. That makes this conversation with John Milne, Liberal Democrat MP for Horsham, unexpectedly timely – because he was already asking some pretty fundamental questions about whether local government reorganisation was a good idea in the first place.
John makes an important distinction between two changes that are often bundled together.
Devolution? He's in favour. Local government reorganisation? He wishes it wasn't happening.
He can see a strong case for Sussex thinking at a bigger level about transport, economic development and environmental challenges. A directly elected mayor gives the region a recognisable figurehead and potentially greater influence with central government. A river doesn't stop at a council boundary; neither does a transport network or an economy.
But John worries that creating much larger councils could take everyday democracy in precisely the opposite direction.
Fewer councillors representing many more people means, in his view, less local accountability. And he worries about what happens to the things that matter enormously to individual places – theatres, parks, museums and community facilities – when they become relatively small items on the balance sheet of a much larger organisation.
His example is Horsham's Capitol Theatre. John believes its survival owes something to decisions about it being made close to a town that understands its value. Had it belonged to a much larger authority facing major financial pressures, he wonders whether it would still be there.
🎯 In this episode 👤 About John Milne MP 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#60: Can Chichester Become A Laboratory For The Future?
Season 2 · Episode 28
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Duration 31:36
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #58
Can Chichester Become A Laboratory For The Future?
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Dr Catja de Haas – architect, urbanist and co-founder of Chichester Laboratory
🔍 Episode summary
Sussex is being encouraged to think bigger. One strategic authority. Sussex-wide approaches to growth, housing, transport and prosperity. Decisions that previously sat within individual councils will increasingly need to make sense across a region stretching from Chichester to Hastings.
But where does that leave the small, local and experimental?
Dr Catja de Haas thinks Chichester might provide part of the answer.
An architect and urbanist who grew up near Amsterdam, studied in Delft and Barcelona, worked in Japan and later studied housing and urbanism in London, Catja has spent much of her career thinking about places facing change: particularly smaller coastal cities trying to grow without losing what makes them distinctive.
She is now one of the people behind Chichester Laboratory, an experiment in bringing architects, planners, academics, universities, residents, campaigners and other local voices together around real problems facing the city.
And the problems can be very specific.
What should happen to old fibreglass boats? How could polluted waterways be tackled? What would make cycling genuinely viable? Could underused land within the city provide better housing? How do you build new homes without creating developments where everyone remains dependent on a car?
Rather than starting with another grand strategy, Chichester Laboratory starts with the problem and tries to connect it with people who might be able to do something about it. Catja describes it almost as a dating platform for civic problem-solving: a local issue might find a university researcher, an architect, a community group or a professional with relevant expertise, with the Laboratory helping an idea move towards research, testing and eventually a real project.
🎯 In this episode Chichester as an urban laboratory Housing connects almost everything Communities shouldn't have to invent every solution themselves "You don't know what you don't know" Devolution mustn't make everywhere the same 🧪 What would a Chichester Laboratory actually do? 🏘️ What could Chichester experiment with? 👤 About Dr Catja de Haas 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#59: Maybe We Should Stop Consulting Young People, And Give Them Some Power Instead
Season 2 · Episode 27
Sunday, August 30, 2026 • Duration 36:25
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #59
Maybe We Should Stop Consulting Young People, And Give Them Some Power Instead
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Adam Muirhead – Director of Youth Work Services, Trust for Developing Communities
🔍 Episode summary
Sussex devolution is a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity'. But for which generation?
If the decisions being made now will shape housing, transport, skills, jobs and public services for decades, the people who will live with them longest need more than an occasional invitation to tell adults what they think.
Perhaps we need to stop talking quite so much about consulting young people and start talking about giving them some power.
Adam Muirhead has spent nearly 25 years working with young people. He has worked in youth clubs and on the streets, in hospitals and youth offending services, taught youth work as a lecturer at the University of Brighton and held leadership roles across the profession. He is a former Chair of the Institute of Youth Work.
His definition of youth work strips all of that back to two things. Relationships. And power.
Build meaningful relationships with young people; help them claim some power over their own lives; and, where possible, change the systems in which the odds are stacked against them.
Those systems are not in especially good shape.
Adam describes escalating mental health needs, exploitation and safeguarding concerns alongside a steady erosion of the universal services that once provided young people with somewhere to go, someone to trust and a route into help before a problem became a crisis. As he puts it, "the need goes up and the resource goes down."
Devolution will not magically repair that. But Sussex is creating new institutions, moving responsibilities and money away from Whitehall and deciding how a new strategic authority should work. That means there is a brief opportunity to decide whose voices (and whose power) get built into the system from the beginning.
🎯 In this episode 🧠 Key themes Consultation isn't the same thing as power Young people need more than one seat at the table The foundations underneath young people are weakening Devolution creates a chance to design something differently Transport can determine who gets an opportunity Can you grow up in Sussex and afford to remain here? 🗳️ So what would giving young people power actually mean? 👤 About Adam Muirhead 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
#58: Small Boats Aren't Sussex's Real Immigration Story
Season 2 · Episode 26
Sunday, August 23, 2026 • Duration 35:49
The Sussex And The City Podcast
– Episode #58
Small Boats Aren't Sussex's Real Immigration Story
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Laura Charge – Immigration Consultant and former Home Office immigration specialist
🔍 Episode summary
For all the heat around immigration, the national debate has become remarkably narrow. Small boats, asylum hotels and border control dominate the conversation. But look at immigration from Sussex rather than Westminster and there is a different picture.
International workers are staffing care services, hospitals, hotels and restaurants. Farms and horticultural businesses rely on overseas labour. Schools recruit internationally. Technology and gaming companies compete globally for specialist talent. Crawley is home to a significant Chagossian community, while Brighton & Hove has been shaped by successive waves of people choosing to make the city their home.
Laura Charge has spent her career seeing this system from both sides. She joined the immigration service at 17, worked within the Home Office system and now runs an immigration consultancy from Horsham, helping businesses, schools and individuals navigate rules that can be bewilderingly complex.
Her conversation with Richard Freeman starts with the fact that asylum is only one small part of immigration. Laura describes around 40 lawful routes into the UK, covering work, study, family, settlement and other circumstances. For Sussex employers trying to fill vacancies or recruit specialist expertise, those routes are not an abstract political issue. They can determine whether a business can find the people it needs.
That presents an intriguing problem for devolution. A future Sussex mayor will have considerably more responsibility for skills, employment and economic growth, but virtually no control over immigration. What happens when Sussex knows it needs nurses, care workers, engineers, programmers or hospitality staff, but the policies governing who can come here are designed nationally?
And if devolution encourages Sussex to think of itself more consciously as a region, who gets included in that story? Someone whose family has lived here for generations? A Chagossian family in Crawley? An international student who stays after graduating? Someone who moved down from London? Or, as Laura points out, someone who crossed the border from Kent?
🎯 In this episode 🧠 Key themes Immigration is an economic issue as well as a political one The immigration system is much bigger than small boats Devolution creates an unusual mismatch of powers Smaller businesses face particular friction Belonging is more complicated than birthplace Sussex cannot take its attractiveness for granted 🧭 What does this have to do with devolution? 👤 About Laura Charge 🎧 Production credits 📣 Get involved
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That seems a particularly interesting coincidence in a region with such a strong independent business culture, where the landscape and coast are central to its identity, and where many businesses are closely connected to their communities.
But what exactly is a B Corp?
The certification is sometimes mistaken for an environmental badge. In reality, it considers a much wider set of questions about how businesses operate: how they treat workers, their supply chains, their environmental impact, their relationship with communities and the way decisions are governed.
Underlying it is the idea of stakeholder capitalism.
Rather than treating financial returns to shareholders as the overriding measure of success, businesses consider the interests of everyone affected by their activities, including employees, customers, suppliers, communities and the natural environment.
That doesn't mean abandoning profit or ambition.
Demi argues that responsible business can be a route to stronger, more resilient growth precisely because it encourages companies to think beyond the next quarter or financial year.
What happens if your business depends on resources that are becoming scarce? What if your workforce doesn't feel valued? What if the suppliers you rely upon are vulnerable? What if decisions that improve short-term margins create much bigger costs in the future?
These aren't simply ethical questions. They are questions about whether a business will still be successful in 10, 20 or 30 years.
And that brings us back to devolution.
The Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority is developing its own definition of prosperity. Demi and Richard have both been involved in conversations about whether that definition should go beyond conventional economic measures to include people, place, communities and nature.
Could some of the principles used by B Corps help Sussex think differently about economic development?
Should public procurement reward businesses demonstrating strong social and environmental practice? Could local government make it easier for small businesses to develop sustainability skills? Could funding help employees learn how to embed responsible practices across their organisations, rather than simply subsidising another certification?
And should sustainability become a normal part of professional competence, rather than something delegated to whoever happens to have "green" in their job title?
The conversation also explores a practical example of devolution funding already beginning to take shape.
Be Business Energy Wise, funded by the Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority and East Sussex County Council, is providing free support to businesses to understand their energy use, reduce costs and make more informed sustainability decisions.
For Demi, programmes like this are an encouraging start. But an energy audit or sustainability plan is only the beginning. The bigger challenge is helping businesses understand why change matters and giving them the knowledge, confidence and resources to put it into practice.
Her long-term ambition is strikingly simple.
She wants sustainable business to become the norm.
Not a niche, not an alternative and not something businesses pursue only when they have spare time or money.
Something that is simply part of running a competent, successful business.
Because at the moment, as Demi points out, it can be difficult to operate sustainably.
What would Sussex look like if, ten years from now, it was difficult to operate any other way?
That's the question at the heart of this conversation.
This episode is brought to you by Be Business Energy Wise, a fully funded programme helping East Sussex businesses take control of energy costs and make smarter sustainability decisions.
Businesses can access free practical one-to-one support, detailed on-site energy assessments where eligible, and workshops covering energy efficiency, sustainability marketing and reducing waste through the circular economy.
You don't need an existing sustainability strategy or specialist knowledge. The programme helps businesses understand where they are now, what could make a difference and what's worth doing next.
Be Business Energy Wise is funded by the Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority and East Sussex County Council, managed by East Sussex County Council and delivered by Always Possible.
Demi's journey from Portslade to New Zealand and back to Brighton
What Hearth Sustainability does and why Demi founded it
What B Corp certification actually means
The difference between shareholder and stakeholder capitalism
Why B Corp is about much more than environmental performance
The growth of the B Corp movement in Sussex
Why the South Downs National Park has an unusually high concentration of B Corps
How professional services firms are embracing responsible business
Whether Sussex's independent business culture makes it particularly suited to this approach
Why sustainable business doesn't have to mean small business
The relationship between responsible business and long-term profitability
What B Corp principles could contribute to Sussex's definition of prosperity
Why businesses should consider the interests of workers, communities, suppliers and nature
Whether local government should reward businesses demonstrating better practices
The potential role of public procurement and business rates
Why funding sustainability training may be more useful than funding certification
How Be Business Energy Wise is supporting East Sussex businesses
Why sustainability needs to become part of everyday professional skills
The importance of collaboration between businesses and sectors
How young people can be introduced to alternative business models
What a more sustainable Sussex economy could look like in ten years
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Demi Heath Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex.
sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex.
And rather than importing his existing management culture into Sussex, Ian has started taking some of that Sussex approach back to his other businesses.
Sussex is dominated by smaller businesses, independent enterprises and specialist suppliers. We often discuss this as a weakness, particularly when comparing ourselves with regions dominated by major corporate headquarters or large industrial employers.
But Ian sees something else.
He describes Sussex as an untapped pool of talent, where larger businesses could find specialist expertise, suppliers and people capable of supporting their growth.
Perhaps Sussex doesn't need to become a miniature version of Birmingham, Manchester or London to attract investment. Perhaps it needs to get better at explaining the economic value of what already makes it distinctive.
There is, however, another side to Ian's experience.
He works in transport, logistics and commercial vehicles – industries that rarely feature prominently in the stories we tell about the Sussex economy, despite being essential to practically everything else.
We have Gatwick Airport, the ports at Shoreham and Newhaven, agricultural businesses, food producers, manufacturers and thousands of enterprises that depend on getting people, products and materials from one place to another.
But Sussex is not always an easy place to move things around.
The South Downs, the A27, rural roads and fragmented infrastructure create practical problems for businesses such as Agricom. Ian describes having to spend two hours travelling to and from facilities needed for truck MOTs.
His argument isn't that Sussex needs motorways carved through its countryside.
Instead, he asks whether we could think more strategically about the roads we already have, where industrial facilities are located and how shared distribution hubs might support rural businesses without damaging the places that make Sussex attractive.
And then there is the experience of arriving here as an investor.
Ian is already considering another workshop in Sussex. But identifying the right location, understanding the local business landscape, finding relevant networks, accessing skills and discovering what support or funding might exist is surprisingly difficult when you don't know the area.
That matters as the Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority begins to develop a more coherent approach to inward investment and economic growth.
Attracting an investor is only the beginning. Making it easy for them to stay, expand, employ people and build relationships is just as important.
This is a conversation about trucks and tractors, certainly. But it is also about the character of the Sussex economy, the economic importance of logistics, the advantages of smaller businesses and what somebody arriving from outside can see that the rest of us might have stopped noticing.
And perhaps the most interesting finding is that Sussex's different pace of business might be something worth protecting, rather than apologising for.
This episode is brought to you by Be Business Energy Wise, a fully funded programme helping East Sussex businesses take control of energy costs and make smarter sustainability decisions.
Businesses can access free practical one-to-one support, detailed on-site energy assessments where eligible, and workshops covering energy efficiency, sustainability marketing and reducing waste through the circular economy.
You don't need an existing sustainability strategy or specialist knowledge. The programme helps businesses understand where they are now, what could make a difference and what's worth doing next.
Be Business Energy Wise is funded by the Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority and East Sussex County Council, managed by East Sussex County Council and delivered by Always Possible.
Why Ian Jolly unexpectedly became an investor in rural West Sussex
His ambition to build a national network of commercial vehicle repair businesses
The story behind his acquisition of Agricom near Petworth
How Sussex's business culture compares with the Midlands and the North
Why a different pace doesn't necessarily mean lower ambition
What Ian is taking from Sussex back into his other businesses
Whether Sussex undersells the value of its smaller-business economy
Why specialist suppliers and independent enterprises could attract larger investors
The importance of transport and logistics to economic growth
What COVID revealed about the essential role of commercial transport
The difficulties of operating commercial vehicles in rural Sussex
Why better roads don't necessarily mean building new motorways
How strategically located industrial and distribution hubs could help
The potential for shared logistics infrastructure serving Sussex food producers
What an outside investor needs from local business networks
Why Ian is already considering further investment in Sussex
The skills needed to maintain the next generation of electric commercial vehicles
Why business grants and support can be difficult to navigate
What a more investor-friendly Sussex might look like
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Ian Jolley Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex.
sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex.
Donna sees an opportunity for housing to stop being treated as a separate policy silo and instead become part of the county's essential infrastructure - connected to employment, health, education, transport, public space and community.
But before that can happen, the social housing sector itself may need to get more organised.
Donna estimates that more than 70 social housing providers operate across Sussex, ranging from major national housing associations to tiny specialist providers. Her previous experience in Greater Manchester showed her what can happen when those organisations speak collectively, work strategically with a mayor and make a clear proposition about what they can deliver.
Sussex hasn't traditionally done that.
So Donna is beginning to bring providers together – not simply to ask a future mayor for money, but to make an offer: land, development expertise, investment, community relationships and the ability to turn strategic plans into actual homes.
And this isn't merely a question of finding enough planning sites.
A major housebuilding programme will need construction workers, surveyors, materials, investment and infrastructure. Donna describes long-standing shortages in construction skills and difficulties recruiting professionals such as quantity surveyors and building surveyors. Major projects such as Gatwick's expansion could create further competition for labour and materials.
Then there is public consent.
People may recognise that Sussex desperately needs housing while simultaneously worrying about what new development will do to the place where they live. Donna's response is not that those concerns should be brushed aside. Housing associations need to use brownfield land, regeneration opportunities and infill intelligently – and development itself needs to produce places people genuinely want to live in.
Because this conversation ultimately isn't about hitting a housing number.
It is about whether Sussex can use devolution to start answering a much more useful question:
Where do we want people to live – and what else needs to exist around them for those places to work?
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This episode is brought to you by Be Business Energy Wise, a fully funded programme helping East Sussex businesses understand and reduce their energy costs while making more informed sustainability decisions.
Businesses can access free practical one-to-one support, detailed on-site energy assessments where eligible, and workshops covering subjects including energy efficiency, sustainability marketing and reducing waste through the circular economy. You don't need an existing sustainability strategy or specialist knowledge – the programme is designed to help businesses in East Sussex to understand where they are now, where energy may be being wasted and which actions are genuinely worth taking next.
Be Business Energy Wise is funded by the Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority and East Sussex County Council, managed by East Sussex County Council and delivered by Always Possible. Find out more at www.alwayspossible.co.uk/be-business-energy-wise.
Why Donna has spent nearly 40 years working in social housing
What a housing association actually is
The difference between social rent and "affordable" rent
How housing associations finance new homes
What Section 106 agreements contribute to social housing
Why Worthing Borough Council transferred its housing stock in 1999
How Worthing Homes became a 4,000-home community-based landlord
Why there are more than 70 social housing providers across Sussex
What Sussex can learn from Greater Manchester's housing providers
Why the sector needs a stronger collective voice
Whether councils or housing associations should lead new social housebuilding
The scale of homelessness and housing waiting lists in Sussex
Misconceptions about who can access social housing
Why low turnover means existing stock can never meet current demand
Brownfield sites, infill and finding development land in Sussex
Shortages of construction workers and professional skills
The effect major infrastructure projects could have on building materials
Why housing needs to be planned alongside transport, jobs, schools and healthcare
What housing associations mean when they call themselves "place shapers"
How housing can support health, employment and local economies
Why collaboration could make public investment go further
What a future Sussex Housing Alliance might offer a mayor
Housing associations are independent, not-for-dividend organisations providing homes at below-market costs.
They are governed by boards and raise much of their finance privately rather than borrowing directly through government.
New affordable housing can be supported through grants from Homes England or through planning requirements such as Section 106 agreements, under which private developments provide a proportion of affordable housing.
Housing associations then offer different forms of tenure.
Social rent
Typically significantly below market rent – Donna describes it as around 60% of the local market rate.
Affordable rent
Despite the slightly awkward name, this can be up to around 80% of market rent.
Shared ownership
Residents purchase part of a home and pay rent on the remainder, offering another route for households unable to buy outright.
Worthing Homes itself was created through a large-scale voluntary transfer in 1999, when tenants voted for Worthing Borough Council's housing to transfer to the new housing association.
A major reason councils transferred homes in this way was finance: housing associations could access private investment and raise money to improve existing stock and build more homes.
Donna Cezair is Chief Executive of Worthing Homes and has worked in social housing for nearly four decades.
She began her housing career in 1987 and moved into her first executive role six years later. Since then, she has worked with housing associations, local authorities and national organisations across the UK.
Before joining Worthing Homes in January 2023, Donna was Chief Executive of First Choice Homes in Oldham, giving her direct experience of operating within the Greater Manchester devolved system and the collective approach developed by housing providers there.
At Worthing Homes she leads a community-based housing association responsible for approximately 4,000 homes and 10,000 customers.
Donna is also Chair of the Board of ForHousing.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Donna Cezair Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
👉 sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex
👉 sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex
That work has given Rob a broad view of what's already happening.
And there is a lot happening.
Through its research, Wayforward has spoken to more than 200 people across well over 100 organisations and identified more than 50 pioneering nature recovery projects in Sussex.
The finding isn't a lack of enthusiasm or expertise.
It's that people overwhelmingly want to collaborate more, but often lack the time, coordination and infrastructure to do it.
The opportunity for devolution, then, might not be for a new mayor to invent another layer of environmental activity. It might simply be to give a bigger voice, greater coordination and more confidence to what is already here.
Sussex is incredibly green.
We have the South Downs. The sea. Rivers, chalk landscapes, woodland, farmland and important habitats. For most of us, some kind of extraordinary landscape is never very far away.
And that makes it easy to assume nature is doing rather better than it actually is.
Rob points to research around the River Adur where around two-thirds of surveyed river users believed it to be in good or very good condition, despite evidence of its environmental problems. The landscapes around us can look beautiful while biodiversity declines, waterways deteriorate and water resources come under increasing pressure.
Sussex is going to build houses. It will need infrastructure. Political leaders will want investment, jobs, transport projects and visible evidence of economic progress.
Rob's argument isn't that nature recovery should become a reason to pretend none of that can happen; it's that this is the wrong binary.
Development can have environmental costs while also creating opportunities for nature recovery. Nature recovery itself can support jobs, tourism, science, research, health and wellbeing. Walking, cycling, food, wine, culture and the visitor economy can all connect to the landscapes and seascapes Sussex is trying to recover.
Projects including Sussex Bay, Weald to Waves, the work of Sussex Wildlife Trust and other nature recovery programmes are already demonstrating pieces of that story.
Put those things together, give them a much bigger political voice and Rob believes Sussex could become something genuinely distinctive as a global hotspot for nature recovery, research and sustainable tourism.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with TEDx Worthing, returning to Worthing Pavilion Theatre on 5 October. This year's theme is We Begin Here, exploring how local change starts and what each of us can do to be part of it, with talks, performances and interactive installations bringing more than 700 people together. Sussex and the City listeners can save 20% on tickets using the code SUSSEXCITY20. Visit www.tedxworthing.com
Why this conversation, recorded in July 2025, feels even more relevant now
How the definition of prosperity emerging in Sussex has changed
What Wayforward does and how Rob became involved in nature recovery
The origins of Sussex Bay
What Sussex's Local Nature Recovery Strategies are trying to achieve
What Rob learned from talking to more than 200 people across over 100 organisations
The extraordinary number of nature recovery projects already operating in Sussex
Why enthusiasm for collaboration isn't the same as having capacity to collaborate
The need for "leading from the middle" rather than another umbrella organisation
Whether nature needs to be explicitly written into a future mayor's targets
What we actually mean when we talk about "nature recovery"
Why access to nature matters for health, creativity and community wellbeing
Whether Sussex takes its natural environment for granted
The gap between how healthy nature looks and what the evidence tells us
Why growth versus nature is the wrong argument
How development and infrastructure could coexist with nature recovery
The economic potential of ecotourism
Sussex's opportunities around walking, cycling, diving and watersports
How nature recovery can connect with arts, culture, food, wine and health
Why a future mayor's voice could make a significant difference
Whether Sussex could become internationally recognised for nature recovery
Rob Alcroft is co-founder of Wayforward, a social-purpose strategic consultancy working with organisations seeking to create social and environmental impact.
Rob's background is in the charity sector and fundraising. Way Forward combines that experience with expertise in communications and marketing, with a particular focus on stakeholder and public engagement – understanding how organisations can build meaningful involvement around their work.
Wayforward's nature recovery work in Sussex has included helping develop the original vision for Sussex Bay and leading engagement for the Local Nature Recovery Strategies across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove.
The organisation has also worked with Sussex Wildlife Trust, Weald to Waves and the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust, giving Rob and the team extensive experience of the people, organisations and projects involved in nature recovery across Sussex.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Rob Alcroft Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
👉 sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex
👉 sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex
But perhaps the more interesting opportunity begins once those mayors exist.
Hannah points north, where mayoral authorities that might reasonably be expected to compete are increasingly collaborating. Northern mayors have come together around investment, infrastructure and a bigger story about the North of England. Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region cooperate where their interests align while retaining their own identities and priorities.
Why couldn't Sussex and Hampshire do something similar?
There is no shortage of shared problems. The rail journey between Portsmouth and Brighton is painfully slow for the distance involved. The A27 contains notorious bottlenecks. Connections from the South Coast to Heathrow are awkward. Both regions want investment, better infrastructure, productive businesses and stronger economies.
And both suffer from being bundled into the rather misleading national shorthand of London and the South East.
Being relatively close to London doesn't mean the South Coast has seamless infrastructure, uniformly high productivity or an economy that needs no investment. Hannah argues that Sussex and Hampshire could start articulating a different story that identifies the things they can achieve together and gives the South Coast a more coherent voice with government and investors.
That doesn't mean inventing a new super-region or pretending Portsmouth, Brighton, Southampton, Chichester, Basingstoke and the Isle of Wight are all the same place.
In fact, much of the conversation is about how slippery geographical identity really is. Portsmouth has a strong identity. So does Southampton. Sussex has East and West. Hampshire's northern M3 corridor can feel remarkably distant from its southern coastal cities. And people often identify much more strongly with a town, city or neighbourhood than with an administrative county.
Perhaps that's why collaboration can work.
The new structures don't need to erase those identities. They might instead give neighbouring places permission to ignore boundaries when the problem they are trying to solve ignores them too.
So this isn't an episode about Hampshire. And it isn't really about maps.
It's about whether devolution could help create a different political and economic geography of the South Coast – one based less on inherited administrative boundaries and more on the places, connections and challenges that actually exist.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with TEDx Worthing
Tedx Worthing returns to Worthing Pavilion Theatre on 5 October 2026 This year's theme is We Begin Here, exploring how local change starts and what each of us can do to be part of it, with talks, performances and interactive installations bringing more than 700 people together. Sussex and the City listeners can save 20% on tickets using the code SUSSEXCITY20.
Book now at www.tedxworthing.com
Why we had to interview Hannah twice
What years of working around local government have taught her about local politics
Why local elections increasingly reflect national political frustration
The growing importance of hyper-local campaigns and identities
What years of financial pressure have done to councils
How aware people in Hampshire actually are of devolution
Why explaining what a new mayor does may be harder than politicians expect
The similarities between the Sussex and Hampshire devolution journeys
Why devolution and local government reorganisation need to be understood separately
The political upheaval happening across Hampshire
Whether local government structures designed in the 1970s still make sense
Portsmouth's relationship with Chichester and West Sussex
Why county boundaries often make little sense in everyday life
The very different identities within Hampshire itself
Whether Sussex and Hampshire could form a stronger strategic alliance
What the South Coast could learn from collaboration between northern mayors
The painfully slow Portsmouth-to-Brighton connection
Why the A27 is an obvious shared priority
Connections to Heathrow and other infrastructure challenges
How neighbouring mayors could cooperate while still competing for investment
Whether the South Coast needs a stronger collective economic story
Why "London and the South East" conceals as much as it explains
"Local politics has always been a vessel for protest at the national government."
"They've got very low awareness that it's happening and low awareness of what it could mean."
"To me and my family, Portsmouth and Chichester were two places that we went to. It was irrelevant which county they were in."
"We do need our structures of government as a whole to reflect how we live and work now rather than 1972."
"What we're missing down here, we don't have that coherent voice and that working together."
"The narrative is like London and the South East. If you live here, you know that it's far more complex than that."
"There are a lot of opportunities, and it just requires people to want to work together."
Hannah Lazell is a political and public affairs consultant with extensive experience across national and local government.
Her involvement in politics began while studying in Birmingham, where she volunteered on Gisela Stuart's 2010 General Election campaign in Birmingham Edgbaston.
She subsequently worked in Parliament for MPs including Shabana Mahmood and Harriet Harman, and as an adviser to Labour's House of Lords team.
Hannah later spent seven years at the Local Government Association, working closely with councils and political leaders across the country.
She now works independently across strategy, policy and public affairs, with local government and devolution continuing to form an important part of her work.
Originally from Havant and now based in Portsmouth, Hannah also brings a particularly useful perspective to Sussex and the City: that of someone watching almost exactly the same devolution process unfold immediately across the county boundary.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Hannah Lazell Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
👉 sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex
👉 sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex
Then there is housing.
Horsham is prosperous, well connected and largely rural. It sits within London's economic orbit, close to Gatwick and within reach of Brighton, Guildford and Croydon. Unlike neighbouring areas constrained by the South Downs or a shortage of available land, it is also under enormous pressure to accommodate new development.
John is unequivocal that Sussex needs more homes, particularly genuinely affordable ones. But he is equally frustrated by a system that can approve thousands of houses without guaranteeing the schools, healthcare and transport infrastructure needed alongside them – while homes officially described as "affordable" remain far beyond the means of many local people.
The question isn't simply whether Horsham should grow. It's what kind of growth creates a better place.
John sees real potential in Sussex-wide transport. Rural bus services are particularly important to him: not simply as a public service but as part of the economy. If people in villages cannot get to work and businesses cannot reach potential employees, poor transport becomes a brake on productivity as well as a threat to rural life.
There is, however, a bigger challenge in importing mayoral models from elsewhere. Greater Manchester has a recognisable centre. Sussex doesn't. There is no single commercial, cultural or transport hub around which everything else revolves. Horsham itself often looks north towards Gatwick, Croydon and London as much as it looks south towards the Sussex coast.
So how does one mayor represent a place that is simultaneously urban, coastal, rural, prosperous, deprived, Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green – and everything in between?
If devolution succeeds, John wants good local jobs for local people. He doesn't want Horsham to become simply a comfortable dormitory town whose residents commute somewhere else to create prosperity.
With the future of local government reorganisation once again uncertain, that question has become rather less theoretical than when we recorded it.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Sussex Intelligence Unit, the independent research platform from the team behind Sussex and the City. It brings together new data, research and evidence-led analysis on growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove – helping businesses, voluntary sector organisations and policymakers understand the decisions shaping Sussex. www.sussexintelligence.com
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John Milne's unlikely journey from advertising creative director to Parliament
How he overturned a large Conservative majority in Horsham in 2024
What being a new opposition MP actually involves
Why planning and housing have been central to John's politics
The unexpected businesses and economic strengths hiding in Horsham
Why Horsham's economic pull often points north rather than towards the coast
The extraordinary pressure on Horsham to accommodate new housing
Why building more houses doesn't automatically create affordable homes
The disconnect between housing development and infrastructure
Why John wishes local government reorganisation wasn't happening
His fear of "institutional paralysis" while councils wait to discover their future
Why bigger councils could mean weaker local democracy
What could happen to theatres, parks and other local assets
Why Horsham is establishing a town council
John's much more positive view of Sussex devolution
Why a mayor could provide Sussex with a useful political figurehead
The challenge of representing a county without a single obvious centre
Why transport makes much more sense at Sussex scale
The importance of rural buses to productivity and village life
What Horsham can learn – and can't simply copy – from Greater Manchester
John's ultimate test for devolution: good local jobs for local people
John Milne is the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Horsham, elected at the 2024 General Election.
Before politics, John spent much of his professional career in advertising, working as a creative director in London and Dublin. He later became a councillor in West Sussex, serving on Horsham District Council, including as a cabinet member, and West Sussex County Council.
He did not initially expect to become an MP. He stepped in as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate at relatively short notice and went on to overturn a substantial Conservative majority to win Horsham.
Planning and housing have been significant interests throughout his local and national political career. Since entering Parliament, he has also become particularly concerned with special educational needs and has supported constituent-led national campaigns.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: John Milne MP Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
👉 sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex
👉 sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex
That also leads Catja to an interesting challenge to conventional thinking about community engagement.
Listening to people matters, but communities cannot be expected to arrive with all the answers. Sometimes good engagement also means bringing expertise into the room, showing people what has worked elsewhere and helping them visualise possibilities they may never previously have encountered. As Catja puts it: "You don't know what you don't know."
Her native Netherlands provides an obvious example. Amsterdam's cycling culture can appear inevitable from the outside, but it was created through political choices and changes that were themselves contested. Showing how another place made that transition can expand the range of things a community believes might be possible.
And this is where a relatively small experiment in Chichester connects with the much bigger Sussex devolution story.
A strategic authority needs to operate at scale. But Chichester has its own geography, economy, history and problems. Catja's argument is that strong local capacity to research, experiment and organise can sit alongside regional scale – generating ideas and evidence that can then feed upwards and, where something works, potentially be replicated elsewhere.
Her ambition is for Chichester to become a small pioneering city; somewhere that tests better approaches to housing, water pollution, climate adaptation, transport and sustainable urban life, while retaining the character that makes it Chichester.
Perhaps Sussex doesn't need to choose between thinking bigger and thinking smaller.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the NatWest Accelerator Hub at the University of Brighton. Designed particularly for ambitious founders and early-stage businesses, including those with four or fewer employees, the Hub provides free workshops, expert coaching and practical support around finance, sales, funding and leadership, alongside a dedicated app and business community.
Why Catja de Haas chose to make the Chichester area her home
What Chichester can learn from cities in the Netherlands and elsewhere
Why smaller cities can be useful places for experimentation
What the Chichester Laboratory actually is
Bringing academics, professionals and communities together around real problems
The Laboratory's research festivals
How universities could become more directly involved in solving local challenges
Why old fibreglass boats have become an urban research question
The potential for researchers-in-residence, hackathons and design charrettes
Why Catja wants the Laboratory to remain small and lightweight
Moving from research and conversation into real developments
Housing as the issue that connects almost everything else
Why apparently sustainable housing can still create unsustainable places
Infill, density and alternatives to car-dependent development
Water pollution and Chichester's environmental challenges
What Amsterdam's cycling history can teach Sussex
Why community engagement needs expertise as well as listening
How local experimentation could influence Sussex-wide plans
Catja's ambition for Chichester to become a model sustainable city
Catja doesn't envisage the Chichester Laboratory becoming another large institution with its own bureaucracy.
She describes something deliberately light, more like a platform that connects problems, people, research and potential solutions.
The longer-term ambition includes a database of research about Chichester, relationships with UK and international universities, researchers-in-residence and focused charrettes or hackathons around particular urban problems.
Success ultimately means ideas becoming projects rather than accumulating as reports.
For Catja, housing is perhaps Chichester's most important challenge because it intersects with so many others.
A house can be highly insulated, fitted with solar panels and technically efficient while still being part of an unsustainable development if its location means every resident needs a car.
She is interested instead in questions of density, infill, connectivity and how Chichester can provide good housing within a compact city – including homes for people such as hospital workers and teachers.
Community engagement is vital, but Catja questions the assumption that lived experience means residents should also be expected to know every possible solution.
People know their place and their experiences. Architects, researchers and specialists may know what has been tried elsewhere.
Bringing those forms of knowledge together can be considerably more productive than repeatedly asking a community what it wants without expanding the possibilities available to it.
Cycling provides Katja's clearest example.
The Netherlands is now so closely associated with cycling that it can seem culturally inevitable. But Katja remembers a process of change in which reducing the dominance of cars was itself controversial.
For Chichester, international examples can therefore do more than provide technical answers. They can demonstrate that apparently unrealistic change has happened elsewhere – and help shift expectations about what might be possible locally.
Katja is cautious about predicting whether devolution will necessarily be good for Chichester. Much will depend on the quality of the eventual plans and the people making the decisions.
Her concern is that the city's particular character and challenges should not disappear inside something too generic.
The opportunity is for strong local networks to generate ideas and evidence that can feed into the wider Sussex system while retaining Chichester's distinctive identity.
The model Catja describes is somewhere between a research network, civic laboratory and matchmaking service.
A resident or local organisation might identify a problem. A university could research it. Architects or planners might explore possible interventions. Campaigners and communities could contribute their experience. Researchers from other countries might show how similar problems have been tackled elsewhere.
The Laboratory can then help connect those people.
Its early 'research festivals' have deliberately mixed professional and community perspectives, with contributions ranging from architecture and urban planning to citizen research and environmental campaigns.
Catja would eventually like to see a searchable body of research about Chichester, more formal relationships with universities, researchers spending time in the city and short, intensive hackathons or design charrettes focused on particular problems.
But the crucial test comes afterwards.
Can research turn into an intervention? Can an idea attract investment? Can professionals take it forward? Can something actually get built or changed?
For Catja, the Laboratory succeeds when it helps move from talking about a place to doing something in it.
Several practical challenges emerge from the conversation.
Better housing
Explore infill, density and new forms of development that provide genuinely useful housing without automatically creating further car dependency.
A cycling city
Learn from places such as Amsterdam about the infrastructure and behavioural change needed to make cycling an ordinary means of getting around rather than a marginal alternative.
Cleaner water
Connect campaigners, researchers, policymakers and specialists around sewage and pollution rather than allowing the issue to become only a source of anger between different sides.
Fibreglass and abandoned boats
Explore the environmental impact of ageing fibreglass vessels and whether universities, designers and researchers can develop practical approaches to reuse or recycling.
Climate adaptation
Use Chichester's manageable scale as a place to test practical responses to climate change and sustainable urban living.
The individual projects may be small. The interesting question for devolution is whether successful experiments could then inform investment and policy elsewhere in Sussex.
Dr Catja de Haas is an architect and urbanist and one of the directors of the Chichester Laboratory.
Originally from the Netherlands, she studied architecture at Delft University of Technology, including study in Barcelona, where her thesis explored the pressures tourism placed on the identity of a coastal town.
She subsequently worked with architectural practices in Japan before moving to the UK, initially intending to stay for two years. Three decades later, she remains here.
Katja completed a PhD by design at UCL examining the idea of home and also studied housing and urbanism at the Architectural Association. Her work has repeatedly returned to questions of housing, coastal places, tourism, identity and how cities adapt to change.
She now combines her architectural practice in London with her work in and around Chichester, where the Chichester Laboratory is developing new connections between local challenges, professional expertise, academic research and community knowledge.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Dr Catja de Haas Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
👉 sussexandthecity.info — episodes, resources, events and more about devolution and change across Sussex
👉 sussexintelligence.com — independent research and evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex
Adam asks why a future Sussex mayor shouldn't have a permanently funded and genuinely powerful youth assembly, embedded within the governance of the strategic authority rather than sitting alongside it as a consultative body. Why not a commissioner for future generations? Why not young people represented directly within decision-making? And could Sussex even become the first mayoral area to introduce a children's precept, raising money specifically to invest in the generation that will inherit all of this?
There are immediate questions.
If you're 17 in Bognor Regis, 19 in Hastings or 22 in Crawley, can you afford to get to college or work? Are you being trained for the jobs Sussex actually needs? If you've grown up here, is there a realistic prospect of being able to afford to stay?
Transport is a particularly tangible example. Greater Manchester already offers free bus travel to 16–18-year-olds. As Sussex gains greater influence over its transport system, Adam argues for an affordable county-wide youth travel concession; not just as a benefit for young people, but as an intervention in skills, employment and social mobility.
And then there is housing. There is little point creating jobs for the next generation if the people trained to do them cannot afford to live anywhere near them.
Young people Adam works with are not currently clamouring to discuss strategic authorities or mayoral governance. Why would they be? But they are interested in the questions devolution will ultimately have to answer, like Can I afford to live here? Can I get where I need to go? Is there a job for me? And do I have any influence over the place I'm going to inherit?
If this really is a once-in-a-generation project, perhaps those questions should carry rather more power.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Sussex Intelligence Unit, a new independent research platform from the team behind Sussex and the City. It brings together data and evidence-led analysis on growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove, helping businesses, voluntary sector organisations and policymakers understand the decisions that will shape Sussex for a generation.
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Why Adam believes youth work is fundamentally about power and relationships
How being young today differs from previous generations
Why adults need humility about experiences they have never had
Rising mental health, exploitation and safeguarding pressures
The erosion of universal youth services
Why consultation alone doesn't necessarily give young people influence
The case for a permanent, properly funded Sussex youth assembly
Whether Sussex should have a commissioner for future generations
Adam's proposal for a dedicated children's precept
Why having one young representative can itself become tokenistic
Examples of youth participation already happening in Brighton & Hove
How devolved skills funding could improve young people's prospects
Why affordable transport is an economic and social mobility issue
The case for a Sussex-wide youth travel concession
Whether young people growing up in Sussex will ever be able to afford to stay
How housing, employment, transport and skills are connected
What a genuinely generational approach to devolution could look like
There is plenty of goodwill towards listening to young people, and Adam points to some genuinely good participation work already happening.
But listening is only one part of the equation.
Young people can attend meetings, sit on advisory groups, respond to consultations and be invited to speak at scrutiny committees without having much influence over the eventual decision. Adam's challenge for devolution is therefore to go further and ask where will young people actually hold power within the new system?
Putting a young person on an adult board can look like participation while reproducing the structures that already exclude many young people.
Adam argues for a range of approaches. Different young people will participate in different ways, and conventional boards are particularly likely to attract those already confident enough to navigate adult institutions.
Meaningful representation needs to reach young people who are disadvantaged, marginalised or simply unlikely to volunteer for a committee.
Adam describes a pyramid of support that once had a broad base of universal youth provision, capable of building relationships, identifying emerging problems and directing young people towards more specialist help.
That base has substantially contracted.
Meanwhile, youth workers are encountering increasingly complex mental health, exploitation and safeguarding issues, sometimes while young people wait years for specialist assessment or treatment.
The result is what Adam describes as a "chart of doom", where demand increases while the resources available to respond decrease.
New political structures do not automatically produce better participation.
But because Sussex is creating new structures anyway, there is an opportunity to build youth power into them rather than trying to bolt it on afterwards.
Adam suggests a permanent youth assembly, stronger youth representation within governance and potentially a commissioner specifically concerned with future generations.
His most provocative proposal is a children's precept, using the strategic authority's ability to raise money for priorities to make an explicit, visible investment in children and young people.
For a young person with limited income, the cost of getting somewhere can determine whether an opportunity is genuinely available.
That means transport connects directly to education, skills, employment and social mobility.
Adam argues that if a future Sussex mayor asks young people across the county what would make a practical difference to their lives, affordable transport is likely to appear very quickly.
With Greater Manchester already providing free bus travel for 16–18-year-olds, he sees a strong case for an affordable Sussex-wide youth travel concession.
Young people could acquire the skills local employers need and find jobs in the Sussex economy, but still be forced elsewhere because housing is beyond their reach.
Adam argues that increased housebuilding therefore needs to include genuinely affordable and social housing across Sussex, rather than concentrating it in communities already experiencing disadvantage.
Adam points to good foundations already operating in Brighton & Hove.
The city's Youth Council uses the Make Your Mark campaign to identify priorities and campaign around them. Youth Wise creates opportunities for young people using youth services to question political representatives directly. Trust for Developing Communities has run peer research, trained young people as researchers and involved them in co-producing approaches to public services.
The problem isn't that nobody knows how to involve young people.
It's turning that practice into permanent democratic infrastructure.
Adam draws on the Lundy model of participation, which considers whether children and young people have space to express their views, a voice through which to do so, an audience that will listen and – crucially – actual influence.
A Sussex youth assembly that can be politely ignored therefore wouldn't be enough.
Nor necessarily would a single youth representative sitting around an adult boardroom table.
The opportunity is to build multiple routes through which different young people can participate, connect hyper-local conversations with Sussex-wide decisions and demonstrate what changed because young people were involved.
Adam Muirhead has worked with young people for nearly 25 years and is Director of Youth Work Services at Trust for Developing Communities in Brighton & Hove, where he has worked for almost two decades.
His experience ranges from traditional youth clubs and street-based youth work to specialist services supporting young people experiencing exploitation, violence and other harms. TDC provides youth work within the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital emergency department and works with young people entering the youth justice system, alongside its wider community and participation programmes.
Adam has lectured in youth work at the University of Brighton and previously chaired the Institute for Youth Work.
He currently chairs Youth & Policy, an international youth work journal, and the Regional Youth Work Unit for the South East of England, and is Head of Youth Work for the Hope Collective, a national collaboration working towards a fairer and safer future for young people inspired by the legacy of Damilola Taylor.
He describes himself as being both "in youth work and of youth work". It is his profession, but also something that has occupied much of the rest of his life.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Adam Muirhead Sound design, editing and original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
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This conversation attempts to get beyond a debate dominated by crisis and look instead at immigration as it is actually experienced by a place: through businesses, jobs, families, skills, communities and the continual movement of people.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Sussex Intelligence Unit, the independent research platform from the team behind Sussex and the City, providing evidence-led insight into growth, infrastructure, governance and belonging across Sussex.
Why the national immigration debate tells only a small part of the Sussex story
The difference between asylum and the UK's many other immigration routes
Laura's experience working inside the Home Office immigration system
How businesses navigate sponsorship and immigration rules
Why smaller employers can find the system particularly difficult
Sussex's reliance on international workers and specialist skills
Recruitment pressures in health, care, hospitality and agriculture
International talent within Sussex's technology and gaming industries
The Chagossian community in Crawley
Why immigration can be less visible in Sussex than in some other parts of Britain
The relationship between immigration, economic growth and skills policy
What a future Sussex mayor could – and could not – influence
How devolution raises questions about identity and belonging
Why Sussex cannot simply assume people will always want to come here
The Sussex economy needs people. Some skills can and should be developed locally, but employers also recruit nationally and internationally. Immigration policy therefore has direct consequences for businesses, public services and the region's capacity to grow.
Laura describes around 40 lawful routes through which people can come to the UK. Work, study, family and settlement are all significant parts of the system, but are frequently overshadowed by the political and media focus on irregular Channel crossings.
A future Sussex mayor will have greater influence over skills, employment and economic strategy without controlling immigration policy. Sussex could therefore become better at understanding exactly which workers and skills it needs while remaining dependent on decisions made in Westminster about who can come to Britain.
Large employers can afford specialist HR teams, lawyers and immigration support. Smaller organisations may have exactly the same need for international expertise but face a disproportionately complicated process when trying to recruit it.
Creating a stronger political identity around Sussex inevitably raises questions about who belongs within it. The county's communities have always been shaped by movement – both international migration and people arriving from elsewhere in Britain.
The county has powerful advantages: its coast, countryside, culture, universities and proximity to London among them. But attracting and retaining people also requires good jobs, housing, infrastructure, education and communities in which people can see a future for themselves.
Immigration itself is not being devolved. Decisions about visas, asylum, settlement and citizenship remain matters for national government.
But many of the consequences of migration – and many of the reasons people move – intersect directly with the responsibilities of the emerging Sussex strategic authority.
Skills shortages affect economic growth. Migrant workers support important sectors of the economy. Housing and transport affect whether people can take available jobs. International talent can determine whether specialist businesses choose to invest and expand here. And questions of identity and community cohesion matter to the wider sense of belonging that accompanies the creation of a stronger Sussex-wide political geography.
The challenge for a future mayor is therefore not to devise a Sussex immigration policy, but to understand how national immigration policy interacts with the economic and social reality of Sussex – and to represent that reality intelligently to Westminster.
Laura Charge is an immigration consultant based in Horsham, West Sussex, with extensive experience of the UK immigration system.
She began her career with the immigration service at just 17, initially working at the Port of Dover, before going on to work across the Home Office immigration system.
Today, Laura runs her own consultancy, supporting individuals, employers and educational institutions to understand and comply with UK immigration requirements. Her work includes helping businesses navigate sponsorship and recruitment, supporting independent schools with international students and specialist staff, and helping individuals understand lawful routes to remain and settle in the UK.
Her perspective combines experience from inside the national immigration system with the everyday reality of helping employers and individuals navigate it at local level.
Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Laura Charge Sound design / editing / original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue
