Telscombe Cliffs will become known as "sewage town" if Southern Water is allowed to build a treatment works on the beach, the Portobello inquiry was told.

Former town mayor Gerry Summerfield said property values would be devalued in the Saltdean, Telscombe and Peacehaven area if the "very extensive sewage works" were built on the site.

Mr Summerfield, representing East Saltdean Residents' Association, said: "Who would want to reside in this area with a sewage works on their doorstep of the magnitude now being planned?

"I can see in the future we shall become known as the sewage town if this scheme is allowed to proceed."

Mr Summerfield said there would be a detrimental effect on tourism in the area.

It would particularly effect the Grand Ocean Hotel, which has recently been refurbished and is open all year catering for thousands of visitors. He said many of the guests walked

daily along the seafront at Saltdean.

He said few of them would want to walk along that stretch of the promenade if the scheme was allowed as they would not want to be faced with the sight and possible smell from the

proposed works.

Mr Summerfield said the proposed project would increase traffic along the busy A259 south coast road, which is already full to capacity and recognised as the second busiest road in the Lewes District Council area.

The inquiry at the Meridian Centre is the result of Southern Water appealing against East Sussex County Council's decision not to allow it to build a £60 million sewage treatment and sludge recycling centre on the beach at Telscombe Cliffs.

Southern Water says it is the best site and the works are needed so the Brighton area can have cleaner seawater off the coast.

Residents and opponents of the scheme spent the day outlining their objections to the proposals.

John Morris, a member of the Robin Allen Team Against

Portobello said he believed

the best site for the works

was north of Brighton near the junction of the A27 Brighton bypass and the main A23 to London.

He said purified effluent could be recycled to the supply mains to households or industry, or returned to the underground reservoirs over a wide area of downland.

He said the area he proposed was not residential,

Mr Morris was speaking on behalf of the organisation founded by Jeanette Allen in memory of her late husband, Robin, who died from a

heart attack immediately after making a speech opposing

the project at an East

Sussex County Council meeting.

Judy Law, an all-year round swimmer from the nearby beach at Saltdean, held up waxy balls formed of effluent which she had collected from the beach.

Mrs Law, who lives in Bevendean Avenue, Saltdean, said: "I swim in the sea all year and there have been many times when the liquid waste from the existing long-sea outfall at

Portobello has come on to the beach and put off hardy bathers."

She showed a video which she said proved that whatever was discharged into the sea at Telscombe would not be disposed of naturally, regardless of the level of treatment Southern Water proposed.

The inquiry continues.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.