A WATER company has revealed a £31 million investment scheme to improve bathing water quality.

Southern Water has announced the latest stage of its enhancement programme for improvement around three of the county’s beaches.

Selsey, Middleton and Worthing have all been selected for the programme designed to bring water quality up to excellent.

Taxpayers will cover the cost of the scheme at around £2 per customer over five years.

The company has identified seven sites where it will work with councils, the Environment Agency and other organisations to find and fix causes of pollution

A separate package of work for other beaches which failed to make the shortlist has also been announced though none is in Sussex.

A final eight bathing waters currently not at the highest level, including Brighton, Felpham and Aldwick beach at Bognor, will not receive any funding from Southern Water but could benefit from investigations the company has carried out.

These results are to published in action plans.

The firm is encouraging councils and other organisations to put the findings to good use by championing initiatives such as awareness campaigns which include efforts to discourage residents and visitors from feeding seagulls.

The company said it could not resolve all the issues alone and was calling on communities to come together to help achieve results.

A spokesman said: “We are producing action plans for each of the 21 [beaches] which, once finalised, will be published on our website and shared with the relevant local authorities and other organisations.

“The Action Plans will give an overview of the issues our investigations uncovered at each bathing water and what could be done to put them right.”