Noise complaints over water plant's bead clean-up

Neighbours of a water treatment plant say they are now being disturbed by machinery being used to clear-up spilled plastic pellets, coming after complaints of odours and a fire at the site.

Huge numbers of the "biobeads" escaped into the sea from Eastbourne Wastewater Treatment Works in East Sussex in October.

Gail Ball, who lives nearby, says she sometimes hears a "low hum" that was "not particularly pleasant".

Site operator Southern Water said "the large machine being used underground" to suck up spilled beads was causing the humming noise, and apologised.

Nearby resident Patricia Nevins said she thought the noise was a helicopter when she first heard it.

"We do understand that they have to clean the beads up," she said.

The pellets have washed up along the Sussex and Kent coast, and the water company says the clean up has cost more than £2m so far.

Ms Ball told BBC Radio Sussex the noise "starts with your feet and works up to your head".

A Southern Water spokesman said it had stopped night work, but "teams continue to work in confined spaces deep below the ground in very challenging conditions".

The company also said it was repairing and reinforcing the screen that allowed the biobeads to escape and installing "extra monitoring".

The noise complaints follow concerns about a smell being generated by the treatment facility.

Eastbourne Borough Council served Southern Water with a legal notice over the odour in August.

Deep cleaning of odour control units was delayed by a fire on site, according to the water company.

Eastbourne councillor Penny di Cara says the beads incident has been "just another episode in a long-going saga" and there "hasn't been the investment" required in the facility.

A council spokesperson said the authority continued "to closely monitor progress" with odour control and maintenance work, "including any noise associated with short-term work currently underway there".

Southern Water said: "We've been enhancing the odour control systems at the plant which we know will be welcomed by residents."

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