Desalination plant could be built on the coast to meet future demand for water.

South East Water has been running a small trial plant at Newhaven Harbour for the last 18 months to test the economic and environmental feasibility of the scheme.

The water company is now proposing a full-scale plant capable of producing up to 9.5 million litres of drinking water a day - equivalent to almost 60,000 South-East residents' daily use of water in their home and garden.

The plant would be contained inside a small warehouse built in Newhaven.

No site has yet been earmarked for the scheme but the company said it could be built at the harbour and, subject to environmental assessments, be running by the end of 2007.

It would run at full capacity during extended periods of dry weather and when demand for water was high.

It would then be blended with water from other sources and fed into the distribution system to reach those areas with water shortages.

South East Water supplies 400 million litres of water every day to 1.5 million customers in Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.

But the desalinated water would only supply its Sussex catchment, which includes most parts of East Sussex and Mid Sussex and some parts of West Sussex. Towns include Haywards Heath, East Grinstead, Uckfield, Hailsham, Seaford, Heathfield, Eastbourne and Bexhill.

The plans come at a time of the most severe drought in Sussex for 100 years.

Southern Water and South East Water are operating full hosepipe bans in Sussex. Bewl Water and Weir Wood reservoirs, which both serve people in Sussex, are about half full. Normally at this time of the year they would be almost at capacity.

Producing tapwater from ground water costs £20 per million litres and it costs double that amount to treat surface water. Desalination, however, costs £300 per million litres.

South East Water reassured customers that the cost of any desalination plant was already factored into bills up to 2010.

Water bills are set five years at a time and the average bill in 2004/5 was £129 while the average bill in 2009/10 will be £151.

Nine pounds of this £22 increase would be used for maintaining secure water supplies and part of that £9 would be used for desalination investigations and building any proposed plant.

Gael Lehimas, senior engineer at South East Water, said: "With the pilot scheme largely proving successful, we can now move onto the next stage to develop more detailed proposals for a fullscale plant.

"Newhaven remains a key location from which to deliver the extra water a desalination plant could generate, as it links directly into our water main network and up to the Mid-Sussex area, where it is most needed."

Thursday, March 16, 2006