A sewage plant the size of 17 football pitches would look like an enormous cowpat, an inquiry heard.

Southern Water was yesterday told a £200 million wastewater and sludge treatment works planned for Peacehaven was "outrageously out of scale".

A five-week inquiry is hearing an appeal by Southern Water after East Sussex County Council failed to decide on the original application for the plant at Lower Hoddern Farm.

Designers have admitted the greenfield land chosen to accommodate the development was "lovely".

But at 12 hectares, the plant will be the equivalent of two streets containing 70 homes and gardens, Matthew Horton, QC for the council, argued yesterday - or the size of 17 football pitches.

Concerned residents have protested outside proceedings at the Meridian Centre about the smell, noise, traffic and visual impact the plant would have.

Architect Nigel Ostime said his team of designers were "well aware this was a sensitive location, adjacent to some very beautiful countryside".

Cross-examined by Mr Horton as part of the proceedings, he admitted he thought the landscape surrounding Peacehaven was "lovely", although he said he had no qualms in designing the massive plant to be built there.

The director of Reid Architects said that far from spoiling the landscape, the modern-looking plant for treating raw sewage would protect and enhance the area.

Evoking the town's history as a retreat for soldiers after the horrors of the First World War, Mr Horton asked: "To protect an area of intrinsic loveliness you stick a sewage works in it, is that it?

"It is in outrage to put something in that landscape that is so big and out of scale with its surroundings.

"I suggest that what you have envisaged looks like an enormous cowpat - it is a huge disk, which is what a cowpat is, just dumped on the Downs."

Describing the greenfield land as "urban fringe", Mr Ostime said he did not think the facility would look out of place.