Subscribe to this blog's feedIt’s always nice when the general public appreciate your work, and so it is gratifying to learn that Southern Water’s public tours of its fine Victorian sewer system are often full and even over-subscribed. Utility Week editor Steve Hobson (pictured emerging blinking mole-like into the daylight) recently joined a special “VIP” tour, where he was surprised to discover more than half the guests were female. Not something we would normally expect to appeal to the fairer sex, sewers.
The original brick-built sewers laid in the 1870s are still in pristine condition, the Victorians tending to design and build for a 500 year life rather than the mere 50 we tend to go for these days. It is however one of those great ironies of life that the sewers were built to cope with the huge growth in the population of what was them known as Brighthelmstone due to the fashion of the day for bathing in the sea. The problem was of course that while the superb sewage system kept the streets clean it combined rain water and sewage so when it rained heavily the combined overflow discharged straight into the sea, thus spoiling the main attraction. Due to East Sussex council’s reluctance to see Brighton sewage treated on its patch at Southern Water’s proposed new works in Peacehaven this is more or less what happens still. At least now the combination of a 5km interceptor tunnel under the beach, basic treatment at Portobello and a long sea outfall means that Brighton’s ever popular beaches now meet EU bathing water standards. The size of the tunnel is such that combined sewer overflows near the beach should only occur once every 50 years - though with climate change the one in 50 storm now seems to occur once a week in places!
