"SMALL" fines for Southern Water have been slammed after they discharged 40 million litres of untreated sewage into the sea.

The water company was fined £160,000 with £27,000 costs for polluting the Sussex coast between Lancing and Ferring on September 1, 2012, after its Worthing treatment works failed during a storm.

All beaches along the roughly ten-mile stretch were closed for six days following the incident.

Councillor Keith Dollemore, from Adur District Council, said the turn of events was “disgusting”.

He said: “I’m pretty appalled at the amount of effluent that was allowed to flow into the sea.

“The fine is a small amount. Any raw sewage going into the sea is just not good enough. They really should have all sorts of precautions in place. It’s pretty disgusting.”

Chris Todd, a campaigner for Friends Of The Earth, would like to see the money benefit people locally.

He said: “Damage has been done to the Sussex coast and that money should be given to the local people to help clean up the existing beaches.”

He added that £160,000 is “not very much at all”, saying: “It’s difficult to know if it has much impact. If the money comes from the shareholders at Southern Water it will make them sit up and take notice.

“In the long term we should stop Southern Water making these deposits at all.”

Southern Water was convicted in August of breaching environmental regulations over the incident but cleared of two charges relating to the proper maintenance of equipment.

The Environment Agency prosecuted the company and said it was “pleased” with the fine with Southern Water adding the penalty will not be passed back down to its customers.

Sentencing at Chichester Crown Court on Tuesday (Sep 22), Judge Christopher Parker QC branded the company "negligent".

He said: “The company knew there was a foreseeable risk of an unauthorised discharge for a nine-month period due to the lack of adequate screening of untreated sewage at the treatment works.

“Therefore they should have been aware of the possibility of a serious failure at the site, were negligent and should have had adequate back-up systems in place.”

It was noted the company had since taken steps to reduce the risk of another incident occurring.

Phil Barker, director of operations for Southern Water, apologised to customers and businesses affected.

He said: “This is a significant fine but we have already invested more than a hundred times that amount over the past three years to improve the site and install back-up systems to help reduce the risk of a future emergency.

“We are disappointed with the verdict but we have a responsibility to our customers and we took the tough decision to make a controlled release of untreated waste water into the sea to protect homes and the hospital from flooding.”