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Bathing water status means pollution has to be regularly monitored, increasing pressure on water companies to improve water quality.
A group of Wild swimmers from the River Stour said they were applying for bathing water status for their river to stop it being used as a dumping ground for sewage after members fell sick after swimming. See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-64595307
Could parts of the Teifi be given Bathing Water Status to help stop pollution?
It’s also one of the objectives of the Poppit SeaGals campaign see: https://www.teifi.one/onewebmedia/poster-campaign-launch-final.pdf
I’ve dropped a line to the Surfers against Sewage campaign page where they offer help for getting your site listed as a bathing site (https://protectingwildwaters.org.uk/)
I did this in order to ask the question about how we go about recording bathers over the swimming season if the waters are too foul and a health risk to get into! Knowing what we know about our river, how can we ask any of our community to regularly get into those waters and risk their health in order for it to be logged as a bathing site? Anywho – I’ve asked them who it is we might speak to at the regulating bodies about this. Figured it’s a place to start!
I really like the idea of trying to get areas designated for bathing quality – Cilgerran would be an obvious choice maybe? It has the carpark so public access, close facilities, easy access into the river. And crucially maybe is an area in need of better testing, monitoring and cleaning. But as we were saying last night, if it’s tidal to there is probably won’t come under the remit?
We need to find somewhere that fits all the criteria. It can’t just be a spot on the river where a couple of people swim – it needs to be well-used by many. Catch 22!
SAS have a great guide for the project. https://www.sas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SAS-Bathing-Water-Designation-Toolkit-2022.pdf
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