media release, 6 August 2017
Brief to support business development and regeneration and projects
A new communications agency has been founded in Pevensey Bay with a brief to support business development and regeneration and projects, with the implementation of local profile strategies that will have what is being described as ’20/20 vision with a sharp local focus’.
The organisation will be working with a variety of clients, the first of which will be revealed this coming week.
A spokesman for the new agency said, “we will be working with a variety of clients with print and online profiles, through to literature, social media and web platforms, as well as providing strategic advice in relation to proposals for developments, funding projects and applications for grants”
“We are in a position to work with everything from a one-off media release communication to a year long campaign
“We also hope to be working directly with developers with their communications to the community
“The idea behind the Bay Life Communications Agency is that we will become the organisation to commission for a new business start up communication, or a plan to re-profile a shop, service or a project in or around Pevensey Bay, the agency is a very simple idea, and we believe timely”.
“There has been a huge shift in the social and economic landscape since the General Election. 2017 and the change is being seen in the way in which everything from major develeopments to the allocation of coastal community funds is taking place.
“What we want to do is to lobby for Pevensey Bay and contribute in a major way, if possible, to campaigns for regeneration here, involving not just local authorities and developers but also national organisations like English Heritage, the Arts Council of England and national and regional tourism bodies”.
“There has never been a hyperlocal communications agency for a small coastal community in Sussex, we believe that we are the first”.
“Communication agencies in this context are usually funded by Government money with the profiles filtering through to the local level by regional bodies, utilising big communications agencies, which dissipates the message.
“We want to work in the same way as the grassroots organisations like the people behind the share offer for Hastings Pier and the Saltdean Lido near Brighton, which began from the ground up, with local people, utilising the Localism Act with entities like community interest companies and crowd funding campaigns”.
“We believe we are in a unique position to offer this kind of advice and service, profiling ideas and proposals
“We are independent, not reliant on any Government funds and in a position to lobby because we understand the dynamics of how local authorities will have to work in this New Age. We are post austerity, the question for all small coastal communities is how to access some of the money that is now being made available in various ways related to regeneration.
Even the £26.8 project to restore the Maderia Drive Arches in Bright”on was launched with a local crowd funding campaign. Two weeks ago. £11,000 was raised in the first twenty four hours of the campaign by the crowd funding specialist, Space Hive. Today (6 August), that figure now stands at £115,512. The campaign is a prime example of how regeneration is now happening across the country in coast locations. These schemes are partnerships between local authorities and local people.
“Services will have to be delivered in new ways, this is already happening. Local authorities will have to partner with commercial organisations and local business partners forming entities like local trusts, this is already happening.
“We want to be here to communicate some of the new messages that will be necessary to convey to a local audience. What is fundamentally important to thes new bodies is that they will have to find wayss to connect with local people.
“We also understand the new context for regeneration and investmant that we are seeing not just in pockets of activity on the Sussex coast, but across the country.
“We believe that Pevensey Bay is ripe for such a hyperlocal service because of the location, history, heritage and potential for economic growth here.
“The fact that we are the first such hyperlocal service in Sussex, we see as being an advantage.
“We expect to be working with services identifying plans for new shops and services, through to event planing and profiling and campaigns that will project businesses in a way that will connect with the key local audience here”.
“We hope to be working with everything from the new beach huts that have been mooted, to the plan to revitalise Beachlands with the major injection of a national grant to see the frontage signage and gateway at Marine Avenue to what was to have been ‘a modern town in its entirety’, returned to a rightful place in the history of early modernist architecture in the country.
“The agency has already been commissioned to provide the print profile and web platform for the pilot Pevensey Arts and Literature Festival in the summer of 2018.
“Our first business client in Pevensey Bay will be revealed this Thursday (August 10)”.
