Jaywick Sands Happy Club

"I hate the word deprived..." Volunteer at Jaywick Sands Revival Foodbank.

Jaywick, a village sitting on the eastern coast facing the North Sea, was declared 'England's most deprived area' by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in 2025 for the fourth consecutive time.

In the 2024 election, Nigel Farage, of the Reform UK party, became MP for the Clacton-on-Sea constituency, which Jaywick sits within. Reform UK's main policies include being against immigration and plan to abolish climate change net zero goals. Jaywick, and many other areas voting for Reform UK, will soon be negatively affected by climate change related coastal flooding.

Googling Jaywick provides a long list of negative headlines, with documentaries such as Channel 5's 'Benefits By The Sea' alongside many YouTuber videos supposedly showing life in England's most deprived neighbourhood.

Despite the negativity associated with Jaywick, the village has a thriving community and a strong culture of care, of which the local population is proud.

Jaywickians are highly aware of media representation issues regarding their village, and are fed up with content creators arriving with a preconceived negative story. Many locals give examples of when they have felt tricked by interviewers promising a positive report, which ends up portraying them with the same negative stereotypes.

'Jaywick Sands Happy Club' is the name of a grassroots community support organisation. The club represents the wider culture of Jaywick – a village that, despite an infamous reputation for social and societal issues, is a place where a community lives by its own narrative, where even karaoke in pubs can provide a space of support and care.

In a polarised world where communities, movements, friends and even families on different political wavelengths are seemingly unable to connect empathetically with their political 'other', right-wing populist movements use these divisions and fears to their advantage to generate support. In an area where many are living day to day, sometimes meal by meal, people vote for what will supposedly benefit them. The Labour government takes away winter fuel benefit payments whilst Reform UK pledge to drill for North Sea gas and oil which, they claim, will reduce heating bills.

This project, made closely with the people the images represent, aims to reframe Jaywick's narrative by offering a balanced view of a community whose story is echoed worldwide