The three-month long Portobello inquiry cost East Sussex County Council £750,000 in legal bills. This was the price of defending the sensible refusal to allow Southern Water to build a chemical factory on our beaches (Argus, August 12).
If that expenditure saves our environment, every penny of the £750,000 was well spent. You'll find that's the majority view of residents from Rottingdean to Peacehaven. But what your report fails to do is identify the guilty parties who made the expenditure of that £750,000 necessary.
It wasn't the county councillors, who courageously threw out two planning applications to extend Portobello.
The guilt rests with Southern Water - who is only interested in its balance sheet, wanting the cheapest option - aided and abetted by county planners who, at first, went along with this nonsense.
They shifted their ground when they saw the scale of the fury, protests and demonstrations in Peacehaven and Telscombe.
The right place to send the legal bills is to the offices of Southern Water. The Water Regulator should be demanding the resignation of its entire board of directors.
-John Hodgson, Capel Avenue, Peacehaven
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