Southend beaches must be avoided after heavy rain has caused sewage overflow into the sea, according to angry campaigners.

Surfers Against Sewage have issued a warning to those looking to head to the UK's waterspots including rivers and seasides.

Southend Jubilee Beach and Southend Three Shells Beach have been named in the list from the campaigners.

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It comes after Anglian Water has confirmed outfalls on Three Shells Beach, Jubilee Beach, Leigh Bell Wharf, Chalkwell Beach and Thorpe Bay pumped sewage into the sea on March 8.

The releases were not immediately reported on Anglian Water’s Beach Aware system due to “planned maintenance” on the same day.

The marine conservation charity monitors the water quality across the nation to keep the public in-the-know of any spots affected by sewage.

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Using an interactive map to help illustrate the widespread number of places affected across the UK, Surfers Against Sewage have outlined 83 spots to avoid.

Anglian Water chief executive Peter Simpson will be visiting Southend’s beaches on March 31.

Mr Simpson will meet environmental campaigners from Southend Against Sewage, Environment Agency representatives and Southend West MP Anna Firth.

An Anglian Water spokesman said: “Last week we carried out planned maintenance and testing on monitoring equipment which is used to detect storm overflows in Southend to ensure that the system was working correctly.  To ensure that false alerts were not issued during this work, the external alert system was temporarily switched off on 8 March.

“After heavy rainfall last week, some genuine spills did occur. As we were still undertaking work on our system, we issued manual alerts on this occasion to ensure stakeholders and the public were still made aware of any potential impacts to bathing water quality.

"This is what led to the delay in notifications. Checks on the system have now been completed and the external alert system is now switched back on.

“All six bathing waters in Southend are classified as Good or Excellent for bathing water quality.”