An MP has handed a 10,000-signature petition in to Downing Street calling for a ban on plastic “bio-bead” use in wastewater treatment.

The move, by Hastings and Rye Labour MP Helena Dollimore, follows a major spill at a Southern Water site in October, after which millions of pellets washed up in Camber Sands and Rye Harbour Nature Reserve - and later, as far as St Mary’s Bay.

Clean-up teams have said more than half the estimated spill, which poses a threat to wildlife, could still remain on beaches nearly seven months on.