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AN Eastbourne arts organisation has been awarded over £90,000 in National Lottery funding thanks to its work promoting creativity and providing support to locals.
Based at the Volt gallery in Seaside Road, the Devonshire Collective, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, was granted £92,396 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to support its DC10 project of events.
Director of the Devonshire Collective, Edward Ball told us: “This is a hugely significant piece of funding for us, representing around 30% of our annual turnover. More than that, however, receiving this funding accolade validates our approach and attests to our collective ambition in DC’s tenth year.
“Our DC10 project Discover, Celebrate, Grow helps us deliver on our strategy to inspire creativity and connection for residents in our Devonshire Ward: we will reach more people than ever, share hidden histories of the neighbourhood and create new forms of heritage for Eastbourne that can be preserved and celebrated for years to come.”
DC10 will deliver a range of activities connecting locals, children and young people with creativity including a series of artist-led initiatives such as storytelling walks with Jon Norman Mason, a project capturing the sights and sounds of Seaside Road for young people and a travelling allotment celebrating local growing cultures.
All events, which take place throughout spring and summer, are free and open to all, culminating with a community heritage exhibition displaying the year’s work in October to mark the Devonshire Collective’s birthday celebrations.
“Besides inspiring more people than ever to participate in creativity, another important part of the project is creating opportunities in the
creative sector for local people,” Mr Ball added. “This funding supports us also to recruit a Heritage Trainee, a nine-month work placement for a local resident to gain skills and experience in working for a creative heritage organisation.”
The Devonshire Collective is within the Devons
hire Ward, one of Eastbourne’s nine wards with a geographic boundary to the east of the pier in the town centre.
The area has been ranked 391 out of 33,755 neighbourhoods on the Government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation which looks at income, employment, education, health and crime in an area. The ward also has a high number of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), families in temporary accommodation and social issues.
The ward ranks in the top 9% most socio-economically deprived nationally, against Eastbourne’s average of 22%. Child poverty in the town is at 22%.
“We love our neighbourhood and see the vibrancy, creativity and community every day,” Mr Ball told Eastbourne News. “This is what we really want to celebrate through the project, without ever taking for granted the profound socio-economic challenges many people face here. We see our role as bringing art, artists and creativity into the picture—showing how they can help bring people together, improve wellbeing, shift narratives and create opportunities. Devonshire Ward is a special place, and we have the feeling more people will catch on in the coming years.”
The Devonshire Collective runs a wide range of year-round free creative projects, including DC Learn, a programme for children and young people, reaching over 2,000 residents each year and Sticky Fingers, a weekly sensory play programme for 0-4s and their carers.
The Collective’s Networx Creative Club is an inclusive after-school session for local 5-11year-olds from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds and the Home Ed Club provides tailored art curriculum support for local home-educated children. They also run the Devonshire Youth Collective for 16-25 year-olds, offering work experience, micro-grants and opportunities to shape creative projects in the Volt gallery and throughout the neighbourhood.
Mr Ball added: “We really hope that DC10 becomes a catalyst, encouraging more people in the neighbourhood to feel that creativity is for them. By celebrating the people who live here, the rich and sometimes overlooked architecture, and the cultures and stories that don’t get heard, we think everyone in town will realise how special our neighbourhood is. We also want to use this project to test out a community-led approach, which, if successful, we see as a springboard to seek further funding and increase our reach and impact.”
Mr Ball has been the director of the Devonshire Collective for the past four and a half years and has celebrated many achievements during that time.
“In 2023, we joined Arts Council England’s prestigious National Portfolio programme in what was the most competitive funding round in history,” he told us. “This programme comprises cultural organisations across all artforms in the UK that Arts Council England entrusts to deliver cultural activity for the nation. We are one of only two National Portfolio Organisations in Eastbourne, alongside the brilliant Towner.
“More recently, we were honoured to accept the Creative Excellence Award at the Eastbourne Business Awards in October 2025. We were celebrated for our growth, ambition and community-led mission.”
There’s no doubt that the Devonshire Collective is doing important work in Eastbourne.
Leader of Eastbourne Council, Cllr Stephen Holt said: “The Devonshire Collective has been a hugely positive force in the Devonshire Ward ever since it was first established with support from the council and local partners as part of wider regeneration efforts. They make a great contribution to the community, and over the past decade they’ve really helped support and uplift an area that faces significant challenges.
“This latest National Lottery funding, which forms part of the Collective’s DC10 anniversary programme, will help them continue celebrating local history, creativity and community pride. It’s a fantastic boost for a brilliant organisation that has consistently delivered for local residents.
“Alongside our backing for the Devonshire Collective, the council is also investing in the wider area – from major seafront improvements, to the Article 4 Direction that helps manage the concentration of HMOs, and continued close partnership work with the police – as we strive to improve opportunities and quality of life for everyone in Devonshire.”
MP for Eastbourne Josh Babarinde recently spoke in Parliament about the importance of supporting the arts sector.
“Arts organisations like Towner and the Devonshire Collective face huge funding pressures like many others across the country, putting their amazing work at risk,” he said.
“They’ve got loads of ideas for how the sector can be better supported, so I challenged the Secretary of State to meet with a delegation of them and I – and he accepted.
“I’m looking forward to leading this national delegation (with strong Eastbourne representation!) to Westminster to make the case for turbocharging support for the arts, which is so vital for our communities and our economy.”
Devonshirecollective.co.uk, 67-69 Seaside Road, Eastbourne (open Wednesday – Saturday 12pm-5pm)
