First of all, our wonderful Victorian West Pier is allowed to decay and fall into the sea.

Then Southern Water scuttles around trying to inflict the misery of its sewage on the coastal strip. What links the two? Cost.

The pier died because it should have been repaired years ago but would have cost too much. Southern Water pretends it is looking seriously at eight coastal sites which are already squabbling like ferrets in a sack - but we might have to go back to Portobello because it is the cheapest option.

In the long run, cheap is dear and short-termism is the cancer of British society. Southern Water has no money of its own. Its wealth is the income it derives from its captive customers.

The only way forward is for the coastal strip to unite and demand this monopoly uses our money in a responsible way. Not one drop of the 95 million litres of waste water it discharges every day should be pumped into the sea. We must move on from the Middle Ages if we are serious about enhancing the sea as an environmental and tourist gem.

We need a state-of-the-art inland treatment works on a brownfield site. This could produce high-quality organic solids and clear water to run off. Yes, it would be expensive but, costed over a 50 or 100 years, it is peanuts and would bring enormous benefits.

If Brighton and Hove were an inland city, would anyone seriously propose allowing its water company to pump 95 million litres of waste into local rivers and lakes? Of course not. Why, then, should Southern Water be allowed to continue to poison our seas?

There used to be an old maxim in politics that there are no votes in sewage. I've got news for all our local MPs - there are now, literally thousands of them.

-John Hodgson, Capel Avenue, Peacehaven