CAMPAIGNERS for cleaner beaches have been given a tour of Victorian sewers by a water company.

Southern Water invited members of the Clean Seas Please campaign to visit Brighton’s Victorian sewers.

Clean Seas Please is looking to encourage people to help keep the area’s beaches and bathing waters clean and has raised concerns about household sewer pipes which are plumbed into surface water drains leading to wastewater being flushed straight to sea without being treated.

Sewerman Stuart Slark, who led the tour, said: “Most people who come on a tour know very little about the sewer system and wastewater treatment but I was impressed with how much this group understood what we did and the challenges we face.”

Jan Cutting, from Rother Voluntary Action who run Clean Seas Please with their Hastings counterparts, said: “Although it sounds rather strange, the Clean Seas Please team were really keen to have a look inside a working sewer to see for themselves the problems caused by the wrong things being flushed or poured down the drain.”

For more information visit www.cleanseasplease.net and www.southernwater. co.uk/paininthedrain.