Rebecca Maer

The annual cost of housing benefit in Eastbourne is more than £30 million, while rents continue to rise and limited numbers of new homes are built. The lack of housing is the driving force behind the Eastbourne Community Land Trust, which plans initially to build five houses for key workers

The tombstones, crucifixes, angels and inscriptions slowly emerge from the creeping ivy and smothering foliage as if in a fairy story. What looks like a bank of overgrown shrubs becomes a row of stone memorials, marking lives, families, connections, history. “I just find it really satisfying to clean them up,

Sam Best was researching jobs and considering his future when he came across the Japanese philosophy of ‘ikigai’, said to be the secret to a joyful life. The 19-year-old found that the idea was to fulfil four categories: do what you love, do what the world needs, do what you

(UPDATED MAY 2025 WITH LATEST READERSHIP FIGURES) I’ve just read a copy of an Eastbourne newspaper. It is a model of good local news reporting with eight stories on the front page. Inside, on packed news pages, the reports include eight court cases and three inquests. The defendants in

Brett Wright was elected earlier this month as an East Sussex County Councillor, representing Meads in Eastbourne. His success as a Liberal Democrat resulted in the Conservatives losing their overall majority. We meet the man to find out what motivated him to stand and why he's hoping his

I visit the scarp slope of the South Downs with an ecology-trained adviser and an Old Town local who has walked the area for more than 25 years to hear their fears about how scrub is encroaching on the rare chalk grassland. A company is paid £9,300 of public