A GREEN by-election candidate has called for a beach to be given a special environmental designation to monitor sewage pollution.

Libby Darling, the party’s candidate for the Rottingdean Coastal by-election, has called for the Environment Agency to designate Rottingdean beach as "bathing water" and for the area to have access to its own water quality monitoring.

The beach does not currently have designated bathing water status, although Hove, Brighton and Saltdean beaches do, meaning the Environment Agency does not monitor or protect the water at Rottingdean.

Ms Darling said: “The levels of sewage pollution in our seas is unprecedented yet swimmers and wildlife in Rottingdean go unprotected.

“It’s so important that the Environment Agency designates Rottingdean as a bathing area, so we can protect everyone who uses our beautiful beach from harm.”

The calls come after concerns were raised about sewage dumps by Southern Water.

A petition by Green councillors demanding the water company stop dumping sewage has passed 800 signatures, with activists set to join campaign group Surfers Against Sewage at a protest on Worthing seafront this weekend.

Southern Water was fined a record £90 million last year after bosses admitted dumping sewage illegally thousands of times in Sussex between 2010 and 2015.

A spokeswoman for the company said protecting the environment is a “key priority”.

She said: “Our current pollution incident reduction plan will cut pollution incidents by 80 per cent by 2025.

“Southern Water is also a leader in tackling the separate national issue of storm releases. Systems designed to protect homes from flooding are permitted to release stormwater in heavy rain. Thanks to increased transparency, such as our Beachbouy app, which shows in near real-time 365 days a year any release with the potential to affect bathing waters, public awareness of this system has grown.

“We have set up an innovative taskforce, using natural solutions such as water gardens and swales to cut storm releases by 80 per cent by 2030 in our region.

“Both these challenging but achievable targets are first steps to be built upon to further protect our environment, in many cases working with partners including councils and landowners.”

Six candidates are running in the Rottingdean Coastal by-election on May 5. The other candidates are; Lynda Hyde (Conservative), Robert Mcintosh (Labour), Stewart Stone (Liberal Democrats), Stephen White (independent) and Alison Wright (independent).