Pevensey Bay residents’ plea to tackle ‘Poo Castle’ smell

Residents in Eastbourne are calling for action due to a “nasty” smell coming from a nearby wastewater treatment works.

Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC) said it served a formal notice on Southern Water on 27 August over the odour from the site at Langney Point, known locally as “Poo Castle”.

Steve Davies, who lives nearby, said: “The smell is acidic. It’s nasty. It gets in the house. It’s just like having a raw drain outside your house.”

Southern Water has apologised to residents for the “odour problems”. It said it had met with people to listen to their concerns, explain the causes and the action it was taking.

It said: “We are working to get four special odour control units fully online as soon as possible, and are carrying out a deep clean of this technology over the coming weeks.

“Our teams are doing this as quickly as they can but have been delayed slightly due to repairs needed as a result of the recent fire.”

Christine Earl, who has lived near the works for six years, says the issue has flared up in recent months.

“Our entire summer has been completely spoilt because there’s hardly a day where we’ve been able to sit outside or to have our windows and doors open,” she explained.

Ms Earl says she does not invite people to her home as the smell is “horribly embarrassing”.

“Essentially the minute you come outside you’re actually gagged sometimes from the strength of the smell of raw sewage,” she added.

David Preager, from the Sovereign Harbour Residents’ Association, said the group had received complaints about the smell for years.

“It is becoming increasingly urgent for Southern Water to do something about this because it’s been going on for so many years and we don’t ever get any satisfactory response,” he said.

Mr Preager said the issue was getting worse.

“You seem to carry it around with you all day. You go down to the town centre and you can still whiff it on your clothes,” he added.

Kshama Shore, EBC’s Sovereign Ward councillor, has called on the authority to use its legal powers to tackle the “appalling smells” coming from the site.

She said residents told her the smell “continues to blight daily life, preventing them from using gardens, drying clothes outside, or even opening windows on warm evenings”.

She said others are concerned about health impacts, reporting “worsening respiratory problems during periods of heavy odour”.

The council said its notice was a “legal instrument” that required Southern Water to immediately deal with the odour and to take all necessary measures to prevent any future recurrence.

It said if Southern Water did not resolve the issue quickly it would consider further legal action.