Pinch Points
What is Pinch Points?
Pinch Points is a pioneering action research project focused on improving support for residents facing financial challenges in Lewes District. The project’s goal is to create spaces for collaboration and discussion between decision makers and service providers with people that have lived experience of financial hardship and needing to rely on these services. The focus is on improving support and advice services that deal with financial insecurity, accessing emergency food and crisis support.
Who is involved?
The project is funded by the Lloyds Bank Foundation and is a collaboration between Lewes District Food Partnership, Sussex Community Development Association, Fitzjohns Community Food, Church Action on Poverty, Malling Food Bank and East Sussex County Council.
Participants were actively recruited from community food and support organisations across Lewes District in order to ensure a widespread view of how services are working throughout the area.
When did it start?
The project was developed from a pilot project called ‘Feeling The Pinch’ back in 2023. Pinch Points started in 2024 and in its first year brought together a group of local residents to share their experiences of using community food projects, statutory, voluntary and advice services in Lewes District. These discussions were used to develop themes of shared experiences and to shape the focus of the second year.
How does it work?
Throughout 2025-26, a number of workshops were held that allowed participants to discuss their experiences of using advice and support services and accessing community food.
These themes were then further explored through a series of ‘forums’ which brought together stakeholders and project participants, with a shared goal of understanding how participant feedback can meaningfully influence change in the statutory and voluntary and community sectors. These forums focused on :
Accessing Crisis Support and Advice : ESCC’s Crisis and Resilience Fund
In this forum our participants shared the work they had been developing around accessing crisis support in our district and ideas they had around improvements to access and barriers to engagement.
Representatives from East Sussex County Council and Lewes District Council attended to present on their plans for implementation of the government’s new Crisis and Resilience Fund.
Participants and stakeholders then worked together on how participant feedback on local services and accessing help could be integrated into the implementation, with council officers committing to return for a later meeting to report back on how this had been done.
Accessing Community Food and Advice: What does good support look like?
Forum two focused on participants work around using community food projects and the value that these have beyond providing emergency food, for example as social spaces that help to combat social isolation and places to access advice and support. Community food support organisations and advice workers from across the district came to hear about the work that had been done and workshop on how they could improve their services to reflect this feedback.
As part of this work, participants discussed The Right To Food Commission and made a submission about their experiences of the scale and scope of food poverty in the UK. [Submission doc?]
Co-designing the Lewes District Food Partnership Small Grants Programme for improving access to food and building financial resilience
In our final forum of the year, our participants worked with Hilary, the Coordinator of Lewes District Food Partnership to co-produce a the criteria and a charter for an upcoming Small Grants Programme. The goal of this was to place the voices of lived experience at the heart of the work of the food partnership, directing funds and support to projects that would have the most impact. Participants talked of the types of projects that they benefited from most or would have benefited from and these have formed the priorities for the upcoming grants programme.
What happens next?
Pinch Points is now in its third and final year and as it reaches its conclusion, will focus on amplifying participant voices and influencing local policy, services and decision making wherever possible. Participants will be continuing their work with East Sussex County Council on the Crisis and Resilience Fund, will be working with Citizens Advice and other organisations across the district on access to debt and financial advice, as well as attending meetings and events throughout the year to share their experiences more widely.
Find out more or get involved:
Project Officer: Harriet Lyden
harriet@sussexcommunity.org.uk
07542 305419
Quotes from participants and attendees
“I’m really enjoying feeling part of something that hopefully we’ll make a difference to other people’s lives and encourage other people to speak up”
“It has made me think about the way I interact with clients and the seeing things more from their perspective.”
“Great way of getting to hear other people’s viewpoints and see things from their perspective.”
“It was a great opportunity to hear voices that are so often not heard” “I thought the workshop was very well organised and delivered. It was particularly helpful to hear the participants’ experiences and reflections on CRF. It was clear that the preparation work you had all done with them had really informed their thinking and built their confidence to share their views.”