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Committee report · Full Council · Tue 13 Oct 2026 · East Sussex County Council · the whole meeting

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The Lead Member for Transport and Environment said East Sussex County Council manages around 100,000 highway gullies, with the longest interval between scheduled cleans being three years. p18

In response to a question about Seaford Head Pool, the Lead Member for Education said the pool remains available for school swimming sessions and that Wave Active has offered schools additional booking times. p13p14

The Lead Member for Transport and Environment said the estimated cost of providing an additional drainage jetting machine is approximately £285,000 for the six wettest months of the year, rising to approximately £570,000 for a full year. p21

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  • p13Response by the Lead Member for Education, Inclusion and Special Educational Needs and Disability The County Council recognises the importance of swimming and water safety education for all children, particularly those growing up in a coastal community such as Seaford. Swimming and water safety form part of the PE (Physical Education) curriculum, with pupils expected to meet the relevant requirements by the end of Key Stage 2. Until the end of the 2025/26 academic year, Seaford Head Academy was the main school user of Seaford Head Pool and met the lifeguarding costs associated with its use during the school day. The County Council administered these charges through a longstanding billing arrangement but did not fund them from its own education budget. The Academy gave notice that it intended to withdraw from this arrangement from 1 st September 2026 and would thereafter book and pay for swimming sessions in the same way as other schools. It is not the case that ESCC, or Seaford Head Academy, had exclusive use of the pool during the school day, indeed other schools do use the pool but not as frequently. Wave Active (Wave) is responsible for the day-to-day operation and timetabling of swimming sessions. Following the change in the Academy’s arrangements, the County Council, Lewes District Council and Wave considered whether the previous daytime timetable could be maintained for public sessions. Wave advised that the pool was already operating at a significant loss, that there was insufficient demand to meet the additional lifeguarding costs and that recruiting lifeguards for short or intermittent daytime periods was not possible. Any school/public use must, of course, take place with the appropriate lifeguarding and safety arrangements in place. However, Seaford Head Pool does remain available for school swimming sessions.
  • p14Wave have offered a regular Wednesday afternoon session between 2.00pm and 3.30pm, with a fee payable to cover the cost of the session and the swimming teacher. Wave have advised that this session has been booked and that a further four hours have been booked on other days. They have also confirmed they will consider requests for sessions at alternative times wherever staffing arrangements allow. Wave have advised that the following schools are in the process of booking/have booked sessions in addition to Seaford Head Academy – Annecy School, Seaford Primary, Chyngton School and Cradle Hill. The schools predominantly book blocks of sessions over a period of weeks/focussed within specific Terms, rather than booking regular sessions across the entire school year. Other schools have booked sessions in the past, including Cuckmere House, Hailsham Academy (Hailsham site), Hailsham Academy (Newhaven campus) and Bowden House. These schools were recently contacted by Wave to ask if they would like to book any sessions in for the current school year. The County Council will continue to work with Wave and the other partners to keep the pattern of use under review. If demand from schools increases, this can inform further consideration of the timetable. Schools may also make use of other swimming facilities where these better meet their curriculum, timetabling or operational requirements, including provision at The Wellbeing Square in Newhaven. The County Council will continue to support communication between local schools, Wave and the relevant partners so that schools understand the provision available and can make appropriate arrangements for their pupils.
  • p18Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment East Sussex County Council manages and maintains approximately 100,000 highway gullies across the county. Each gully is assigned a cleansing frequency based on assessed flooding risk, taking account of factors such as historic flooding incidents, silt accumulation rates, highway inspections, and drainage-related reports. The longest interval between scheduled cleans is three years, with approximately 61,000 gullies scheduled for cleansing each year. These frequencies are reviewed annually to ensure they reflect the latest information and operational experience. More information can be found in the County Council’s Drainage Asset Management Plan . More broadly, the Council is continuing to refine its data, inspection and maintenance planning processes to ensure gully cleansing frequencies remain aligned to risk and that available resources are targeted where they will provide the greatest benefit in reducing flooding risk and maintaining the resilience of the highway network. The information requested has been provided below. For the purposes of this analysis, only gullies scheduled for cleansing at least annually have been included, as gullies operating on two- or three-year cycles would not ordinarily receive more than one scheduled attendance during the period in question. Across the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years, 18,929 gullies received more than one attendance. Of these, around 3,200 gullies were not successfully cleaned on successive visits. Reasons for unsuccessful attendance, include factors such as parked vehicles, access constraints, and operational issues.
  • p21Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment The frequency with which gullies are cleaned is determined through a risk-based asset management approach and is based on factors including flooding history, rates of silt accumulation, inspection findings and local drainage conditions. The number of dedicated defect jetting machines therefore does not directly determine how often individual gullies are scheduled for cleansing. It is important to distinguish between this jetter you refer to, whose purpose is for reactive and emergency response, distinct from the Council's planned gully cleansing programme. With the available revenue budget, there is currently a single dedicated year-round drainage defect jetting machine, provided by Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP), whose primary role is to respond to safety-critical drainage issues, flooding incidents and other urgent drainage defects on the highway network. During periods of increased demand, particularly through the wetter winter months, additional reactive jetting resource is made available through BBLP to support emergency response activity. The estimated cost of providing an additional emergency/defect drainage jetter, including the associated traffic management, is approximately £285,000 for the six wettest months of the year, rising to approximately £570,000 for a full year of operation. Whilst a formal cost-benefit assessment has not been undertaken specifically in relation to the provision of an additional year-round defect jetter, there are clear operational benefits associated with increased jetting capacity. In particular, additional resource would improve the Council's ability to investigate drainage problems, undertake preventative work and address underlying drainage issues before they develop into more significant defects or flooding incidents. It would also provide greater resilience within the service and reduce reliance on seasonal additional capacity.

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