Sewage on the Beaches

There's been a lot of concern over the past week or so about the state of our coastal waters.  Recent heavy rain, falling on ground hardened by weeks of drought, overwhelmed some sewage systems in the country.  Under an arrangement permitted by the regulator, water companies released untreated sewage straight into rivers and the sea.  This step prevents the unpleasant flooding that would otherwise occur in homes, hospitals, offices and along roads.  The Environment Agency issued warnings about water quality to sea bathers all along the south coast.

The centre of Eastbourne's sewage infrastructure is the fort-like works at Langney Point.  This is where Southern Water treats the sewage from the town and the settlements around.  It then pumps it out to sea through a long outflow pipe.   

Further west, by the Wish Tower, is the Granville Road Storm Overflow.  This discharges raw sewage directly on to the beach at times of heavy rain.   I think there's another one at Langney doing the same thing (probably more often).

I've been trying to educate myself on how this all works and how we've got to this point.  I've found a paper to help me put it all in context.  It's titled "Were Health Resorts Bad for your Health?  Coastal Pollution Control Policy in England 1945-76", and was published in the Environment and History Journal in February 1999.  The author is John Hassan, a historian at Manchester Metropolitan University who specialised in water. 

The article traces the beginning of the systematic practice of sewage discharge into seas and rivers back to the industrial revolution.  Coastal towns, as their resident and visitor populations grew, abandoned their old practice of depositing effluent in dug-out cesspools.  Instead, they built short drains through which they directed sewage straight into the sea.  The common view was that the sea's salt and mass would disperse and dilute the waste.  

All this sat uneasily with these towns' main selling point for visitors - their offer of an invigorating, healthy natural environment.  It soon became apparent that the sea was not as clean as it might be: unpleasant items were visible;  an occasional stench blew in with the tide.  

Local government, however, was reluctant to take action.  Resident ratepayers objected to costly schemes whose main beneficiaries were the visiting tourists; or neighbouring councils who themselves may have done nothing to address their own polluting.  

So authorities confined themselves to carefully positioned outfall pipes at or beyond the low tide water mark, from which their town's untreated sewage was debouched.  Here in Eastbourne, such an outflow was placed off the then remote Crumbles shingle bank (where it is today of course, although the surroundings are now built up). 

As time went on, concerns grew, and in particular fears of disease from bathing in these filthy waters.  Inshore fisheries became contaminated, with poisoned shellfish causing death or serious illness.  Outbreaks of Cholera and Typhoid occurred.   But official medical opinion remained sceptical.  A direct link between sea bathing and serious disease could not be established.  These illnesses equally affected those who had been nowhere near the sea.    

After the second World War, coastal pollution began to attract more attention.  Official surveys of our tidal waters indicated deterioration.  At the same time, seaside holidays were becoming ever more popular.  Rising living standards and the advent of holidays with pay reinforced the trend. Development of coastal resorts intensified, but investment in infrastructure to address increased pollution failed to take place.  Further concern was expressed about health risks, in particular the fear that sea bathing might be behind the Polio outbreak in children. 

The authorities for their part saw pollution controls as too costly.  The country could not afford higher environmental standards while there were more pressing demands on public funds.  The official position acknowledged that some beaches were aesthetically revolting.  But there was no evidence swimming off them caused serious harm to health.  Then occurrence of such illnesses as Cholera and Typhoid began to reduce.  This was actually down to wider, unconnected public health improvements, for example the Polio vaccine.  It masked the absence of any effort to clean up our bathing waters.   

The 1960s saw the emergence of the Coastal Anti-Pollution League, a pressure group founded by a husband and wife whose daughter had died of Polio after swimming in the sea.  In addition to its conventional campaign, it published an annual list of clean beaches - damning those omitted.  Whatever the league and its founders actually felt about the evidence for health risks, they focussed instead on aesthetic and amenity considerations.  Support grew.  A degree of pragmatism was involved - the campaign acknowledged that raw sewage pumped a mile or so out at sea might present less health risk than fully treated sewage debouched closer to the beach.  Official resistance began to soften.

This trend was mirrored in mainland Europe.  Fledgling European institutions placed environmental considerations at the top of their priorities.  The way was clear for the UK to implement the European Bathing Water Directive of 1976.  Campaigners and pressure groups now had a potent legal basis on which to take action against polluters.

This is where my paper's study ends.  There's no doubt more to consider as the water industry built new treatment works, and the EU published further directives.  The privatisation of water and sewerage was significant.   Brexit will provide a new chapter in the story, now or in due course.

For us and our investigation to understand better our town, the analysis gives us a couple of things to ponder:  

• the speed of development and population growth in coastal towns, and the struggle to build infrastructure to keep up with it; 

• the tension between resident taxpayers, and the interests of visitors and those whose livelihood depended on them.   

More on this in due course.

Settlement in Sussex 1840-1940

To recap, I've been looking at some old academic studies (across various disciplines) which use Eastbourne, or its surroundings, as their subject matter.  

Last time, I finished off a look at a study of the development of Sussex's coastal resorts from the middle of the nineteenth century to halfway through the last.  We learnt about the significance of industrialisation and its effect on people's spending power and leisure time.  We saw how pre-existing settlements along the Sussex coast grew to meet the market for Londoners seeking holidays or taking up residence.  

Now I'm going to have a look at a study exploring the impact of transport changes - specifically, the arrival of the railway, followed by the car and bus - on the size and organisation of Sussex towns.   

The article is titled "Settlement in Sussex - 1840-1940", and was written by W H Parker.  It was published in the journal of the Geographical Association in March 1950.  The paper itself was read out at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Brighton a couple of years earlier. 

The dates we need to keep in mind are 1840 or thereabouts, when the first railway is put down in the county, and then some fifty years later in 1890 when the network there is more or less complete.  The car appears first in 1895, with the bus ten years later.  But railway is dominant until the end of the first world war, and there is no general use of either cars or buses until the 1920s.  The final date to mark is the electrification of the railway in 1930, which speeds up journeys, particularly into London.

We'll look first at the situation just before the railway appears.  Then look at what happens when it does start to roll out.  Then we'll look at the impact of the car and bus.  Finally, we'll touch on faster trains enabled by electrification.  

So just before the railway, we find that newly wealthy families have already started to settle in Sussex.  Those with more leisure time than previously are seeking diversion through visits to the coast.  And former labourers - no longer working in the open air, but in factories or stuffy offices - feel the need periodically for holidays in the fresh air by the seaside.

As for Sussex towns, Brighton is busy and fashionable by this time, as is Hastings.  Towns like Bognor, Worthing, Seaford and Eastbourne have felt the effects of this growing visitor interest, but they remain small, stagnant and seasonable - probably as a result of their poor roads.  Sussex's ports no longer play the prominent role they once did.  Rye remains the biggest, with Shoreham, Littlehampton and Newhaven all carrying on some business.  Like the coastal towns, they have stopped growing.

In contrast, the inland parishes are getting bigger.  The ancient boroughs of Lewes and Chichester have solid populations.  Smaller market towns such as East Grinstead, Arundel, Petworth and Horsham remain busy as market towns for local farm and artisan produce.

So then the railways arrive.  

First the towns.  On the coast, they begin to grow.  Brighton spreads into Hove to its west, and Preston to its north.  Likewise, Hastings absorbs St.Leonards.  Eastbourne, Worthing, Bexhill and Bognor all get bigger.  The ports likewise become small towns. 

The increased population of these towns becomes more concentrated. Workers need to live within walking distance of their work.  They move in from the rural parishes around the towns.  Given much of the work is personal or domestic - working for other people living nearby - this compounds the concentrating effect.  Slums result.

The railway station becomes the heart of the population.  It becomes the source of most necessities of life as well as being a point of arrival and departure for journeys.  This means that people need to live near it.  And new settlements don't expand out from the station, but rather from the next station along the line.  The original town and the new settlement expanding from the next railway station eventually meet.  A bit like Eastbourne and Hampden Park. Or Brighton and Hove.

The railway has a further impact on the inhabitants of inland Sussex.  Rail-connected market towns now distribute imported produce, rather than goods sourced locally.  Unemployment and depopulation of the rural parishes follows.  The population is then replaced - to a certain degree, and only in certain railway connected places - by people moving to the countryside to take residence in villas.

Railway stations create new settlements, in addition to boosting existing ones.  They can't be built on hilly downland or forest ridge.  So new towns may appear around a station in a valley - perhaps down from the existing ridge settlement.  Heathfield is an example of this.  

And the company building the London to Brighton line deliberately places stations between villages, so it can serve more than one place - and settlements duly grow around them.  So Three Bridges comes about, between Crawley and Worth.  As does Haywards Heath between Cuckfield and Lindfield, Hassocks between Hurst and Keymer.  

 

But despite the growth of the towns, there is no new development in other locations along the coast - for the obvious reason that people can't easily get to them.  In fact, the population of non-urban coastal parishes falls.  Whole lengths of the Sussex coast remain in a natural state.

This is the position with the railway well-established.  Then the car arrives.  

An obvious point first.  Roads don't have stations.  Their impact is felt continuously along their course.  And they reach all settlements. Every town will have road access.  Also road is unaffected by the limitations of physical geography.  A road can climb a hill.

So immediately roads begin to reverse the previous concentrating effect of the railway.  Houses are now dispersed across land bought cheap as a result of the agricultural depression.  Buyers could set their houses among extensive grounds.  Towns are cleared of slums.

The empty spaces between towns along the coast are now developed, as the car makes them accessible.  The natural coast begins to disappear.  Ridge top sites become popular again, as do some of the villages whose rural labour occupants left for the town during the railway period.  

The final element in this story is the electrification of the railway.  It boosts places like Haywards Heath.  The town is still a railway station settlement, with residents commuting to Brighton and London.  But the car permits houses to sprawl across the countryside.  Other Sussex towns become London commuter dormitories.

Bringing this all together then, what have we learnt?

• Before the railway, we have some prosperous people beginning to visit or settle in coastal Sussex.  But most of the county is dominated by agriculture and market towns, hampered by poor roads.  There are a few ports.  

• The railway comes and the coastal towns expand as places of tourism and residence.  The population concentrates around railway stations and slums result.  Livelihoods of rural labour in inland Sussex are destroyed, with the countryside  vacated, replaced in some railway towns by commuting villa residents.  

• The car comes and disperses the town population, cheap agricultural land is developed for more spacious housing, and existing towns expand.

• The town of Eastbourne is benefiting from all these changes.

This sets us up well for our future investigations.

London by the Sea - Part 2

I said that I would have another look at the article by Brighton academic Sue Farrant  - "London by the Sea" - with its analysis of the development of Sussex's coastal resorts from 1880 to 1939.  I wrote about what she said about Eastbourne specifically in my earlier blog.  I'm now going to cover some of her broader analysis.

We start at the beginning of the Nineteenth century.  Coastal resorts across the country tend to be places solely for the aristocracy or otherwise wealthy.  In Sussex, we see Brighton and Hastings already established as fashionable resorts.  Smaller settlements are scattered about the coast elsewhere, but their facilities are limited.  

What starts the change is industrialization.  This creates new social and economic groups, in particular those working in services.  Members of these groups have some disposable income, and the time and wish to take holidays.  Existing coastal resorts start to change to cater for these new visitors.  And new resorts are built, to meet the overall increase in demand. 

The outcome is specific resorts favoured by different social classes.  And in some resorts, the seasons are segregated along similar lines.   

Resorts also grow into substantial residential towns.  Convalescent homes come too, as do private schools.  A tension emerges between those whose livelihood depends on visitors, and permanent residents whose priority is to maintain the character (and social "tone") of their town.   

These trends are seen most obviously in Sussex.  Its resorts are closest to London - where this new demand is greater than elsewhere. Since Sussex has no industry, the coastal resorts can draw on under-used rural labour from the Weald to work on construction sites and enable rapid development.  The population more generally migrates to the seaside.

These broad forces affect all the Sussex resorts.  They all have differing starting points, before developing in their separate ways.  But they can be split up into four broad categories.  

Brighton and Hastings, the older resorts, are able to adapt quickly to the widening market and build on earlier success.  Brighton's industry and employment is not solely dependent on tourism.  But Hastings' is, and suffers dire unemployment in bad years - a theme picked up in Robert Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists".  

The progress of the smaller Georgian resorts - Seaford, Bognor and Worthing - is stuttering.  Development companies fail before completing their projects. 

The fashionable self-contained settlements built alongside bigger resorts - St. Leonards and Hove, and Brunswick Town - develop in different ways:  St. Leonards is absorbed by Hastings; Hove maintains its independence from Brighton.  It thrives.  

The Victorian new towns of Eastbourne and Bexhill, covered in my earlier blog, benefit from active and determined local landowners.  They maintain their high social status up to the Edwardian period and beyond.

From 1914, as we saw in Hastings, the problem facing all these resorts was seasonal unemployment.  But some towns compensated with specialist services and independent manufacturing.  The other constraint was lack of any other means of transport but the train. This meant facilities were over-concentrated in inner towns and the central seafront areas.

From the 1920s, all the resorts grew as a result of the boom in building.  Cheap farm land was released for development.  Capital was available to invest.  Emerging modes of travel - car and bus, as well as the growing train network - enabled large-scale private and council house-building further out from centres.  At the same time, pressure groups formed to lobby for greater protection of nearby threatened downland and otherwise precious green spaces.

From the 1930s, two new rivals emerged.  First, the so-called "planned" resorts.  Second, the more informal, dispersed coastal developments.   

Examples of the former were Goring Park near Worthing and Ham Manor near Littlehampton.  These were carefully laid out, socially-zoned estates, both built in grounds of large vacated country houses.  

Informal, unplanned resorts - for example Selsey Bill and Camber Sands - were made up of scattered railway carriages, buses, huts and bungalows.  Such settlements were only accessible to car owners.  They had a marked and controversial effect on remote coastal spots.  

Peacehaven was perhaps the most infamous example of this.  Planned initially in a grid lay-out, it developed haphazardly, absent of effective planning controls.  Small houses were built in purchased plots, scattered untidily over a large area.  For planners working for local authorities all along the coast, Peacehaven became a lesson in exactly how not do it.

So where does this leave our investigation of Eastbourne?  What we know now is that its early years were driven by wider social, demographic and economic forces which affected similar settlements nearby.  We're slowly accumulating further articles and books to help us understand this better.

More in due course.