Sea Change Sussex has been revealed as one of only three organisations in south-east England to be successful in the third round of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund. Grant funding of up to £5.5 million has been allocated – to be combined with private investment – for Sea Change’s proposed North Queensway Business Park in Hastings, to help local manufacturing businesses to expand and create more local jobs.

Sea Change’s North Queensway Business Park scheme is for a 13 acre site – the largest currently available for business use in the area. The site is capable of supporting up to 120,000 sq ft of business floor space divided over several plots.  Participating companies would develop properties on the site to suit their particular needs.

The North Queensway scheme will deliver up to 300 private sector jobs in the area’s primary manufacturing sectors. Sea Change is already in discussions with several medium sized manufacturing firms with expansion plans about potential developments on the site.

The project is designed to help to rebalance the town’s economy and reduce its high dependency on public sector employment.  Sea Change has recently gained planning go-ahead to create a road junction and access to the North Queensway site and has started work to deliver these initial parts of the scheme.

Julian Crampton, Chair of Sea Change Sussex, comments: “We’re thrilled to hear our funding bid has been successful. It’s another significant boost to economic development in East Sussex.

“Our plans for North Queensway recognise the strength of the manufacturing sector in the Hastings area. Working with our partners, we’ve established a programme to maintain the momentum of manufacturing growth using the area’s last remaining employment land before the strategic business sites released by the construction of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road become available from 2015.”

The government funding award is subject to the conclusion of contract terms and a due diligence exercise to be carried out over the next six months.

For more information on Sea Change’s North Queensway proposals, click here.

For broader information about the third round of the Regional Growth Fund, see the Government’s news announcement.

For media information and images, please contact:

Tariq Khwaja from PR agency TK Associates:

T:  01932 224 212
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E:  tariq.khwaja@tk-associates.com