Fury as Southern Water pumps sewage into eight Sussex beaches

In the past 24 hours, the water company discharged sewage in Pagham, Aldwick, Felpham, Littlehampton, Shoreham, Southwick, Saltdean and Seaford sparking outrage in the community.

In some cases sewage was being pumped into bathing sites for as long as three hours.

Chris Moore, a volunteer at Felpham Sailing Club, told this newspaper: “It’s disgraceful. I live in Middleton-on-Sea but the reason I am so upset is the fact that this morning we had a charity sailing event at the sailing club and we took 15 to 20 children out on a Laser 2000 [sailing boat] this morning.

"The kids were in the water and there were a lot of swimming ladies and one 85-year-old swimming in the sea at Felpham.”

Later in the morning Chris learned that Southern Water had ‘chucked a load of you know what’ in the sea, so he took his complaint to local councillors.

"It’s the same old same old,” he said, “they have got to do something about it. We are in the middle of a drought and rather than treat this water they are pumping it out into the sea. Surely they could treat this water and pump it back into the system? It’s ridiculous.

Conservative Arun councillor for Felpham West, Elaine Stainton said she has been raising huge concerns with Nick Gibb MP, the Environment Agency, the county council and others and described Southern Water’s actions as ‘absolutely disgraceful’.

“[Developers] are building more and more houses and the sewage system can’t even take the sewage we’ve got at the moment.”

Last year the company was fined a record £90 million for dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected waters across a number of years.

Then in November 2021, water companies like Southern Water were given the greenlight by the government to dump raw sewage into protected waterways due to a shortage of lorry drivers.

The action was described by a Chichester Harbour spokesperson as ‘a nail in the coffin for the fragile ecosystem’

A spokesperson for Southern Water said: “Yesterday’s thunder storms brought heavy rain which fell onto parched ground and couldn’t absorb surface run-off, meaning that more rain than usual overwhelmed our network.

"This led to some overflows – which are used to protect homes, schools, businesses and hospitals from flooding – spilling excess water into the sea in parts of west Sussex. These discharges are heavily diluted and typically 95 per cent of them are rainwater.

“We are dedicated to significantly reducing storm overflows and are running innovative pilot schemes across the region to reduce the amount of rainfall entering our combined sewers by 2030.”

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