The new Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority board held its first AGM yesterday (Wednesday 1 July) and said that, as a result, it had unlocked £117 million of government funding to be spent over the next four years.
The board, which covers West Sussex, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove, met in Crawley, and discussed the strategic authority’s financial plan for the next four years.
Formed in April as part of the government’s devolution process – a transfer of some powers and budgets to local government – the board is also preparing for the election of the first mayor of the county in May 2028.
The government has allocated £1.14 billion to the strategic authority over the next 30 years. The initial £117 million comes from that pot.
The board includes two representatives each from Brighton and Hove City Council, West Sussex County Council, and East Sussex County Council.
Until the mayor is elected, a representative of the three councils will take turns – eight months each – to chair the strategic authority.
The first chair was chosen yesterday – Councillor Bella Sankey, the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council – and she said that it was a privilege.
She said: “For the first time, the three places that make up Sussex – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex and West Sussex – are sitting around the same table, with a shared mandate and a shared ambition for the future of the place we all call home.
“This is an historic and exciting moment for Sussex. I am pleased to be sitting here today with the new leadership in East and West Sussex and share with them the daunting but exciting opportunity of bringing greater prosperity and investment to our area.”
Councillor Sankey said that she was “genuinely proud” of what the strategic authority had achieved in the few months since it was formed.
She added that the £117 million would be spent “tackling the most persistent issues across Sussex and generating opportunities for everyone who lives here”.
As well as looking at the strategic authority’s medium-term financial plan – covering this year and the next three financial years – the board discussed work on a “prosperity strategy” to guide some of its most important decisions. The strategy will be drawn up over the coming year.
Councillor Sankey said: “The prosperity strategy is the key to attracting investment.
“Its priorities will mean we can work with national and international businesses who want to be part of what Sussex has to offer: brilliant national and international connectivity, a wealth of local talent and three universities producing the skilled people our employers need.
“And, above all, it commits us to securing good jobs for the people who live here – jobs with security and progression, with the kind of graduate and apprenticeship schemes that mean a young person in Hastings or Bexhill has the same chance as one in Crawley or Brighton to build their future where they grew up. Not even London can say that.”
