Community action/East Sussex

The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a conservation charity which aims to protect natural life in Sussex. It was founded in 1961 and is one of 46 wildlife trusts across the UK and the Isle of Man and Alderney. As of 2024, it had 38,000 members and manages 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of land for nature. It is a registered charity and in the year to 31 March 2019 it had an income of £5.7 million and expenditure of £4 million, resulting in net income of £1.7 million.

The SWT manages twenty-six nature reserves in the county. Nineteen are Sites of Special Scientific Interest, one is a national nature reserve, eleven are local nature reserves, eight are Special Areas of Conservation, three are Special Protection Areas, three are Ramsar sites and seven are Nature Conservation Review sites. Its headquarters at Woods Mill, south of Henfield, is also a nature reserve with a lake, woodland and meadows.

The historic county of Sussex is divided into the administrative counties of East Sussex and West Sussex. The South Downs stretches across the county from west to east. This area is chalk and to the north is the Weald, which is composed of heavy clays and sand. The coast has a succession of holiday towns such as Brighton, Eastbourne, Bognor Regis and Worthing.

The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of 1,627 square kilometres (628 sq mi) in southern England, stretches for 140 kilometres (87 mi) from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east, through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex. The national park covers the chalk hills of the South Downs (which on the English Channel coast form the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head) and a substantial part of a separate physiographic region, the western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and vales. The South Downs Way spans the entire length of the park and is the only National Trail that lies wholly within a national park.

East Sussex is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement is the city of Brighton and Hove.

The county has an area of 1,792 km² (692 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 844,752 in 2024. The largest settlements are on the coast, and include Brighton and Hove in the south-west, Eastbourne in the south, and Hastings in the south-east. Away from the coast the county is largely rural, and its settlements include Crowborough in the north, Hailsham in the south-centre, and Lewes in the west. For local government purposes East Sussex comprises a non-metropolitan county, with five districts, and the unitary authority of Brighton and Hove. East Sussex and West Sussex historically formed a single county, Sussex.

The north east of East Sussex is part of the Weald, a sandstone anticline that was once an extensive woodland. The highest point in this area is Crowborough Hill (242 m (794 ft)), part of the High Weald uplands. The south west of the county is part of the South Downs, a rolling chalk escarpment that stretches west into West Sussex and Hampshire. Ditchling Beacon (248 m (814 ft)) is the highest point. Where the downs reach the sea, they form high cliffs such as the Seven Sisters, where eroded dry valleys create an undulating skyline. The county does not contain large rivers, but its largest are the Rother, which forms part of the boundary with Kent, the Cuckmere, and the Ouse, which rises in West Sussex and flows through Lewes before reaching the English Channel at Newhaven.