Sewage discharged near Brighton beach 44 times last summer

Central Brighton, Hove Lawns and Hove First Avenue beaches were affected by 44 sewage alerts between May and September according to Surfers Against Sewage.

Along with Sandown on the Isle of Wight, this was the worst performance in the country last summer.

Now activists are demanding Brighton and Hove City Council pressures Southern Water to stop discharging sewage near bathing waters.

“Multiple studies show there is an increase in the risk of stomach upsets, infections and even hepatitis and e coli if you swim or surf in raw sewage,” organiser Andrew Coleman said.

“Brighton and Hove is a resort city so we feel the city council should put pressure on Southern Water.

“Open-water swimming is now more popular than ever.

“And water sports enthusiasts use our beaches all year round.”

Southern Water reported 571 discharges from its sea outfall pipes to the group’s Safer Seas Service last summer, the most of any water firm.

These included 220 alerts affecting five beaches in the city boundaries.

Currently the company only provides sewage discharge alerts between May and September each year.

But Surfers Against Sewage has demanded updates are provided all year round, something Southern Water says would be costly because of increased discharges in winter.

“With the recent storms of course there has been more rainfall and more discharges,” Mr Coleman said.

“But we still need to know whether outfalls have been used.

“Often the best surf is in storms and paddleboarders, kayakers and surfers will be out in the water.

“Welsh Water provide year-round alerts and their coastline is far better.

“This comes down to Southern Water and its priorities.”

The group’s petition to the city council has more than 300 signatures. But Southern Water bathing water manager Tom Gallagher said providing year-round updates would be “resource intensive”.

“In most cases, release reports require verification meaning colleagues manually analyse our data to confirm what happened,” he said.

“During the wetter winter months, the frequency of releases increases, making it difficult to analyse these in real time.

“We’re in the process of updating our Beachbuoy service to provide automatic updates to all our customers.

“”Fifty eight out of 83 bathing waters in the region achieved the Defra “excellent” standard in 2019.”

Mr Gallagher said the Sussex sewage system was not built to cope with rain, leading to a high number of discharges.

“More than six billion litres of rain has fallen on the region since November,” he said.

“Re-engineering the entire network to separate older systems where surface water drains are connected to sewers would likely cost tens of billions of pounds. Cost and disruption on such a scale would be unacceptable.”