Bexhill beach reopens

Last Wednesday evening (August 17) in a tweet, Rother District Council (RDC), advised people to avoid Bexhill beach and stay out of the sea ‘until further notice’.

The authority said that there had been a sewage discharge from the Galley Hill pumping station earlier that evening due to a ‘technical issue’, which was later resolved.

On the same evening, Southern Water said in a tweet that ‘significant issues with electrical power at one of (its) wastewater pumping stations caused a release into the sea at Bexhill’.

Later it said: “We are deeply sorry for this incident and understand the seriousness and distress this causes.”

Normans Bay beach was also closed off.

Today (Monday, August 22), an RDC spokesperson said both Bexhill and Normans Bay beaches reopened on Saturday morning (August 20).

Last year Southern Water 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.

At the end of July last year, a major leak took place in Bulverhythe, St Leonards, due to a burst pipe under the cycle path at the beach.

Two days later there was a second serious sewage leak which flooded nearby beach huts and affected the beach.

As a result, the area was cordoned off and closed throughout the weekend, and into the early part of the following week.

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