There were cheers in Telscombe Cliffs when Environment Secretary John Prescott announced that plans to extend Portobello sewage works would not go ahead.

But I wonder how many people popping the champagne corks have considered what happens next.

It was highly significant the decision should have been released a few days after Brighton was criticised for having dirty seawater.

The immediate effect is that nothing will be done to tackle the problem.

Here is Britain's biggest and liveliest resort, being visited by the Queen today after getting city status, putting up with a primitive system of sewage disposal.

While other resorts all over Sussex are getting their sewage systems improved by Southern Water at a cost of many millions of pounds, Brighton and Hove gets rid of its waste in a way little different from Victorian times.

In fact all that has happened since Portobello first opened is that the outfall has twice been extended and in 1977 a screening system was installed so that we were spared actually seeing what is disgorged into the sea.

It is pretty disgusting if you stop to think about it and most people do not.

What happened over Portobello was gathering hysteria of the kind I condemned last week in this column.

It was always the obvious site for disposing of Brighton and Hove's sewage in the future as it has been in the past.

When Southern Water first announced its plans for improving the Portobello plant, there was not a lot of fuss.

I remember going down to Portobello a few years ago with Robin Allen, the well-loved Tory councillor who sadly died in 1999 while making an impassioned plea against the plant.

At that time Robin was not alone in broadly welcoming the scheme to clean up sea water.

It was only when his Peacehaven constituents started protesting in force that he, like the good councillor he was, put their views forcefully to the authorities.

But were they right? They did not want anything to do with sewage in their back yards even though it is there now, and has been longer than any of them have lived.

Yet it is not that terrible, as thousands can testify and the inescapable fact is sewage has to go somewhere.

I happen to live near Shoreham Harbour where a new sewage treatment works and outfall was installed by Southern Water.

The prevailing drift is towards where I swim daily in the summer.

The city council takes regular pollution readings and the quality of the water is OK. My own observation is that the water is cleaner than it was before.

The water company did not help its own case.

What it proposed at Portobello, even though largely screened from anyone's homes, was ugly and insensitive for a beautiful stretch of cliffs.

It could and should have been disguised to make it look better and reduced in acreage.

Southern Water will now look again at all the 40-odd sites it considered before plumping for Portobello.

It could go for an inland site but there are big disadvantages associated with that, including heavy lorry movements. It is more likely to go for Newhaven.

Already opposition is revving up to oppose that even though local sewage is already sent into the sea nearby.

There will probably be an even bigger protest than there was at Portobello because more people live in the area.

And the biggest irony of all is that there will still be a plant at Portobello as Brighton and Hove's sewage will continue to drift down there through the Victorian system.

It will have to be pumped upwards at great cost so that it can continue its journey a few miles down the coast.

We will end up with two ugly installations rather than one and bigger bills by Southern Water.

Perhaps some of the champagne will taste rather flat when those who opposed Portobello realise what they have done.