New Care Centre For Eastbourne After 20-Year, £3m Campaign

A campaigner who chained herself to railings, protesting about an East Sussex County Council land decision, has been posthumously rewarded—as her wish for a new supported living centre came true.

In August 2010, Sylvia Westley of Hailsham spent her 90th birthday campaigning to convince the local authority to release land to enable the centre to be built—a wish that has come to fruition in 2023.

A new supported living centre in Eastbourne is now ready to welcome its new residents as a 20-year campaign to provide new assisted living facilities for adults with learning difficulties is finally over.

Gow Lodge, on the site of the former Edgemond Church on Church Street in Eastbourne’s Old Town, will house eight adults and enable them to enjoy semi-independent living.

They are also expected to benefit from training on offer at the Old Town Café, which is also on site.

The JPK Project was formed in 2001 and became a registered charity in 2003 to provide a supported living centre for people with a learning disability in Eastbourne and the surrounding area.

The Trustees said they undertook this huge challenge following extensive research which showed there were no suitable vacancies in the area for this client group to live when their parents or carers died or became too old to look after them.

It was also recognised that parents/carers needed time to assist their vulnerable dependents into supported independent living before a crisis occurred.

The centre was officially opened by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of East Sussex, Andrew Blackman, on 14 July.

Also present was the Mayor of Eastbourne, Candy Vaughan, along with a large crowd of supporters and some of the new tenants, students, and their families.

Protestor Sylvia's daughter, former nurse Jill Parker is a driving force behind the new centre.

Jill has devoted much of her life to making the voice of the learning disabled heard after realising in the early 1980s that her daughter Katie, now aged 44, would need additional support throughout her life.

Supporters said that, over the last four decades Jill has set up a variety of charities to support her cause.

This included running the Downland Farm Project at Willingdon, which provided training in all aspects of hospitality and housekeeping for many young adults with additional needs.

She set up the JPK Project with her friend Leonie Turner to raise money for parents who would one day be too old to look after their teenage and adult children in cases where they could not live by themselves.

Jill—who was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to people with disabilities—began her fund-raising journey with a tea party which raised a few hundred pounds, eventually reaching the £3 million required over 20 years later.

The group named themselves after John-Paul, Leonie’s son, and Katie, Jill’s daughter, who were the inspiration behind their endeavour.

Gow Lodge has eight en-suite rooms as well as a communal kitchen and living area, plus access to computers and laundry facilities.

Many of the people who will live there have also earned catering accreditations at the Old Town Café next door, which opened in 2017.

Charity staff report that the organisation struggled for a long time to find a site or to win support from local adult services, relying on fundraising and volunteers to keep the JPK vision alive—hence Jill's mother's protest in 2010.

But the long struggle has finally come to an end with what Jill says is, in retrospect, the perfect location in the heart of Old Town.

JPK founder, Jill Parker MBE, said:

"We have fought for over 20 years to be a voice for people who cannot speak for themselves.

"Caring for children and adults with disabilities is a full-time job, but the worry of what would happen to our sons and daughters once we were too old to look after them drove us on.

"We are thrilled that our supported living centre is finally open to give opportunities to people with a learning disability and hope to all families whose loved ones need extra care."

Gow Lodge will be funded by each tenant’s Housing Benefit, their Central Government Benefits, and East Sussex County Council Learning Disability Department’s table for care provision.