THE big battalions are engaged. As Southern Water and its opponents fight it out at the public inquiry over expanding Portobello sewage works at Telscombe Cliffs, it is going to be hard pounding.

The people of Telscombe are determined not to have it, and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is going to end up in it, so to speak, when he must make the final decision and upset someone. Coming to work I pass dozens of hand-painted signs shouting outrage at the £60 million upgrade.

Southern Water looked at 44 possible sites and in the end came down to expanding Portobello or building a new works at Newhaven. On Wednesday a water company chief told the inquiry Portobello was not the best option on environmental grounds but was best when all factors were taken into consideration, including finance and existing structures.

We anticipated that point of view in our Opinion on Monday but were clumsy with our words. Our question why the treatment works at Portobello should not be upgraded since it has coped with sewage for more than 100 years enraged J A Byrd, from Saltdean.

He and his wife were shocked by 'the clear indication, with a few peremptory words, that the vastly enlarged sewage works at Portobello is acceptable.' Reading what we wrote again, I see it could be construed as a vote for Portobello. We only meant to be Devil's advocate to make the point that if the decision is for Portobello, Southern Water must have shown the works to be as environmentally friendly as possible, not too big, not too ugly and with tertiary rather than secondary treatment to ensure clean seas. To repeat our final line, the scheme as it stands is not good enough.

Hysterical was the word used by one reader about an aspect of our reporting of the Lewes rail crash two weeks after the Paddington carnage. Steve Fairhead e-mailed to say we went a bit over the top to describe passengers as survivors following what he called 'a minor rail accident'. Thankfully, no one was killed or badly hurt, but the smash was followed by total darkness and passengers were pretty shook up.

As David Sherwood, from Eastbourne, said: 'It was frightening. After the last one at Paddington I thought, Are we going to get off or not?'' He and the others will surely be apprehensive about trains and, given the shock another had crashed after going through another red light, I think our use the next day of the word survivors was all right.

A thank you now from Marion Fancey. Last Friday we told of her fight against cancer and her project for a Millennium Castle doll's house to help the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Her £13,000 fantasy is first prize in a raffle at the end of November, but we didn't say where to get tickets. Send an SAE to Raffle Tickets, 5-7 Elm Park, Ferring, West Sussex, BN12 5RN, enclosing a cheque. Alternatively, phone 01903 244900 with credit card details. Tickets are 50p each, minimum order £5.

Author Andy Thomas will probably make an effigy of one of our journalists for bonfire night. On Tuesday, writing about his book Streets of Fire our choice of his quotes gave a wrong impression. No, his book about the famous Lewes celebrations is not the first on the subject, and he had read books about it before. His appendix clearly lists other books on bonfire, and he's read them all, he tells me. So no sparklers on the Fifth for our reporter!

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