I was angry and amazed at the arrogant and blatantly partisan tone of Voice of The Argus (January 8) concerning Southern Water's sewage treatment plans.

As a long-time resident of Peacehaven, I know something of the chequered history of the Portobello outfall and it does not make pretty reading. True, it has been in operation for at least 100 years but at the time it was built Brighton was a much smaller town.

Saltdean, Telscombe Cliffs and Peacehaven did not come into existence until after the First World War. During the past few decades, the outfall has been extended and patched up several times, at great personal expense to our local population, I may add.

Despite the area of beach below the Old Bastion Steps having always been a popular bathing spot with locals, the water quality, to my knowledge, has not once been tested by either Southern Water or the Environment Agency and many of our young people have suffered health problems most likely caused by bathing in the heavily polluted water.

It is nothing short of disgusting we are still having to endure the pumping of all Brighton and Hove's untreated sewage into the sea directly off our coastline. The filthy slicks of sludge are regularly carried on to our shorelines by the strong currents and prevailing winds and can be quite clearly seen from the cliff top.

We will not be bullied by either Brighton and Hove City Council or Southern Water into allowing any further despoilation of our lovely cliffs and beaches (or our precious downland, for that matter) and will continue to exercise our right in opposing any such moves.

Brighton and Hove appears to be suffering from delusions of grandeur since severing ties with East Sussex and becoming a city, seemingly viewing the population of the smaller coastal towns between Falmer and Seaford as some kind of disenfranchised sub-species, only good for being the unfortunate recipients of all the waste it generates (not to mention its stadiums).

Let the dumper become a dumpee - the city has more brown and greenfield sites available than all the rest of us put together - and clean up its act so it can truly become the Place to Be instead of the neighbour from hell.

-Christine Cogan, Edith Avenue, Peacehaven