Environment Secretary John Prescott has a difficult decision to make over the future of the Portobello plant at Telscombe Cliffs.

He may be trying to put off a verdict, which affects two marginal seats, until after the General Election has been held.

But Mr Prescott shouldn't let politics delay a decision which would lead to a clean-up off Brighton and Newhaven.

The longer nothing happens, the longer people will have to put up with all the sewage from the city being pumped through a long outfall with only the most basic of treatment.

This was highlighted when the European Union named Brighton as a pollution blackspot because waste is not given secondary or biological treatment as is the rule elsewhere.

Southern Water chose to expand Portobello because there has been a plant there for years. Pumping the sewage on to another site, perhaps at Newhaven, would be expensive and awkward.

In the end, the water giant may have to work on a compromise using both sites. But that decision must be made quickly.

Opponents of both sites will have to accept something has to be done with sewage from a medium-sized coastal city and that modern treatment methods will make the discharges much purer than they are today.