People have been advised to avoid swimming in the sea at Saltdean due to pollution from sewage.

Southern Water released sewage into the sea from its Portobello outfall, 2.5km off Peacehaven, at 10.35am on Wednesday due to a “technical fault”.

There was another 12-hour release on Thursday which Southern Water was caused by, and heavily diluted by, a large amount of rainfall.

Now, the Environment Agency has advised against swimming in the sea at Saltdean.

An Environment Agency spokesman said last night: “We have received a report from Southern Water regarding an ongoing technical issue at the Peacehaven waste-water treatment works which we are currently investigating.

“As a precaution, we have updated the Swimfo website with advice to the public against bathing at Saltdean. We will keep it under review.

READ MORE: Failure at Southern Water sewage treatment works in Peacehaven

“If members of the public have any environmental concerns, please call us on our free 24-hour incident hotline, 0800 807060.”

The Environment Agency said the incident is “currently expected to end on March 15”.

A spokesman for Southern Water apologised for the technical failure at the Peacehaven wastewater treatment works.

“We’re sorry this has happened and we are doing everything we can to resolve the issues at Peacehaven," he said.

"The failure is caused by the primary treatment tanks, known as lamellas, not working as they should do, which means the site is struggling to treat the usual amount of flows.

“We are taking samples and modelling the impact of the releases which happened following heavy rainfall. We will provide these details to the Environment Agency.

“Details of releases can be found on Beachbuoy, and we will provide further updates should it have a detrimental impact on bathing water in the area.”