I attended the second pre-inquiry meeting about the Brighton and Hove and Peacehaven Wastewater Treatment Scheme (WTS) in the Anzac Room at the Meridian Centre in Peacehaven on June 8.

As a resident of the area, I thought Southern Water and Brighton and Hove City Council were our opponents, not East Sussex County Council (ESCC).

At this meeting, I discovered I was wrong.

ESCC has agreed Hoddern Farm is the area and, subject to deals, has approved the above proposal.

ESCC is supposed to be working for us, at our expense.

However, listening to both sides of the argument, it is obvious only residents are fighting the proposal.

People who live on this stretch of coast are being betrayed by ESCC. I have written letters of objection to members of the ESCC committee concerned and, guess what? Not one of them lives in the area affected.

Why is Southern Water willing to spend £200 million-plus with various bodies to update and enlarge the Victorian infrastructure when modern developments such as the Starfish system are on offer?

Its motive can't just be profit. Does it have another agenda?

Surely it can't simply be out to destroy Peacehaven? If it is, here are three easy stages to achieve it: First, the sewage update, which entails digging an underground tunnel eight miles by eight feet between Black Rock and Peacehaven, using a 24-hour tunnelling machine which will bore between depths of 23 and 148ft.

Second, work to be carried out under the A259, which will consist of a 24-metre wide corridor at the surface detouring from Portobello, under housing, to Hoddern Farm, then back (under housing again?) to the A259, finishing at Friars Bay.

Third, all this disruption appears to be at the narrowest and therefore weakest section of the A259. So will the road be able to withstand such stress and remain safe and in use?

Particularly as Southern Water's own vehicles will add to our already over-crowded A259 and, finally, will commuters still be able to use this route at all?

-Mrs MJ Goldrich, Peacehaven