Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven General Election 2024 candidates discuss water and sewage

Questions covered several subjects including water privatisation, sewage in the sea, housing, the NHS, small businesses, university degrees, domestic abuse and Gaza.

About 300 people went along to the Lido hustings. For a live thread on X, formerly Twitter, click here.

Some of the strongest audience reaction followed a question by a sea swimmer from Rottingdean, called Nicky. She asked about plans to reform the water industry and put human health and the environment first.

Conservative candidate Khobi Vallis said that people in the constituency were lucky to have so many great places to swim.

She said that the Conservative manifesto committed to placing additional requirements on water companies on sewage. Ms Vallis said: “We will ensure all information is publicly available and accountable.

“If there is anything we can do locally, it’s especially important, particularly in Rottingdean where the sewage pipe comes out, to make sure there’s accountability there.”

Labour candidate Chris Ward said that the issue of water was an example of how things had declined over the last 14 years.

But when a member of the audience called for water companies to be nationalised, Mr Ward said “no” because that would involve compensating shareholders, to which the audience member said: “Tax the rich!”

Mr Ward said: “We need much tighter inspections. It’s far too easy for water companies to get away with outflow. Every outlet needs to be properly inspected.

“This needs to be on a national level. Labour will do that. We’re planning detection on our coastline to protect our water.”

Green candidate Elaine Hills said that privatising utilities had not worked. Water companies had a monopoly and people were stuck with theirs and had no choice.

She said that, during her time as a councillor, she had pushed Southern Water to speak to the council and found the company’s representatives “evasive and slippery”.

Ms Hills said: “We’re stuck with a water company that isn’t doing the job and paying (shareholders) 11 per cent of what should be going back into infrastructure and projects for sustainable drainage.

“We should be dealing with the infrastructure to get this shit out of our seas. It’s disgusting.”

Liberal Democrat candidate Stewart Stone said that it was shocking to be discussing sewage in the seas, lakes and rivers in 2024. He had been put off sea swimming.

He had not heard of the official water regulator Ofwat until recently and said that it needed disbanding because it seemed ineffective and to not be doing its job properly.

Mr Stone said: “We need to transform water companies into public benefit companies, which is in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, for a fair deal.

“We need to ban bonuses for water companies profits until the problems are sorted.”

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Valerie Gray said that her party wanted the water companies nationalised because they were monopolies.

She said that water was a public service which should not be in the hands of a profit-making private enterprise.

Ms Gray said: “This is an essential service and I would much prefer to see any excess profits from water ploughed straight back into improving the standard of the water, instead of going mostly abroad because a great many of these companies have been sold to foreign investors.

“The profits we provide to these water companies do not come back into this country, which is why we need to nationalise the companies to address the shortfalls in the quality of the product.”

Independent candidate Emma Wall said: “We all need every day to drink a bit of water and know that it’s clean. It shouldn’t be something that people can make an enormous amount of profit out of.

“It should just be cleaned and returned to us and we should pay what it costs to do that and make it as efficient as possible.”

Polling stations are due to be open from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 4 July. Photo ID is required for those voting in person.