News & Events

We would like to introduce our members and supporters to our new Chairman of the Board of Trustees: Alex Nicholls.

As written by Alex:

“Karen and I are the principals in Colston Ltd, an Eastbourne based commercial building and refurbishment contractor, for the last 10+ years.  Prior to this radical change in lifestyle, I was the Estates Manager for King’s College in London, looking after a team of 162 staff, and 1 million square feet of university hospital teaching space across two major campuses in South East London.  This followed a long career in Facilities Management with major providers of services and support to large corporations and government bodies.  From repairing tanks for DSG, to Building Schools for the Future in South London, my key focus in every context was on the customer and the user.

I grew up in Scotland and after college in Edinburgh became a Quantity Surveyor and Estimator before being moved with work in 1991 to Croydon – quite a culture shock! My early career took me from managing contracts with Intel, National Power, Powergen and others, to a Directorship with a National Maintenance provider. At 50 the opportunity came up to obtain Colston Ltd; taking it from a small ceiling and partition business to a commercial all trades building contractor.  However, the main draw was to work and serve the community and area in which I live, which has been fantastic and rewarding.

My wife and I live in an old farmhouse in Hailsham, East Sussex and are 25 years into our 10-year project.”

We hope you will all join us in thanking Alex for taking on this role. He will be taking over from fellow Trustees Sam Gritt (Deputy Chair) and Gary Hector (Interim Chair) who we are extremely grateful to for their support in keeping the trustee team on course. The previous full-time Chairman, Chris Ash-Edwards, served for 11 years (resigning in 2024) and was a steady hand helping to guide the Centre through the COVID pandemic. We thank Chris for his time served on the board, and we look forward to this next chapter in Sussex MS Centre’s story.