Sussex town’s living history website is facing possible closure after 17 years

It has grown from a handful of pages and photos to a site that has hundreds of pages and over three thousand images, many of them unique to the site. Almost all the pages are accompanied with background stories and most have many comments from locals, old and new.

According to Andy Gilbert, Chairman of Our Newhaven: “Our Newhaven is now facing a serious problem that threatens that permanence. Our Newhaven is administered by a group called Community Sites, which looks after many similar groups across the country, such as ‘Our Brighton and Hove’. They have been informed that the server that runs the Our Newhaven website is becoming obsolete and must be replaced. However, the software that the website currently uses is incompatible with the new server and the site must therefore move to a new software platform.”

The problem is that this will cost around £3,000. Our Newhaven is a voluntary group and relies entirely on donations and the proceeds from the sales of photos. Newhaven Town Council has been very generous in funding the site’s annual hosting costs in some years and the group’s Chairman, Andy Gilbert has paid for some years out of his own pocket. The group now need to raise that £3000 by the middle of the year or the website will almost certainly disappear.

Over the past 17 years, it has provided some of its images and stories to local groups and organisations, television companies, the Sussex Express, the Town Council, Newhaven Museum and even East Sussex Fire & Rescue.

It has held exhibitions, given presentations, held scanning sessions and has regularly attended events such as the Fish Festival and Lifeboat Fete. Although there are some local Facebook groups for Newhaven photos, Our Newhaven is the town’s only permanent online historical photographic archive, and many regard it as a great asset to the town.

So the Our Newhaven group is appealing for help from local people, local businesses and organisations to raise money.

If you are able to help, please contact the Chairman, Andy Gilbert at [email protected].