I went to one of Britain’s new designated bathing sites – and it’s full of sewage
Plunging into cold water is pure exhilaration. Whether on a hot day or the middle of winter, it makes me – and millions of others – feel peaceful and alive; robust and reset… or at least, it did, until I ended up in hospital, seriously unwell.
I was a regular “wild swimmer” for a decade, taking a weekly cold dip in the sea or river all year round. But all that stopped in July 2022 when I was hospitalised after a dip in the River Avon at Fordingbridge and then Downton, a few miles upstream. Despite being careful not to put my head under the water, I became so ill, so quickly, that I spent several days on a drip in Salisbury Hospital. I haven’t so much as dipped a toe in the river since.
So it was with horror that I read that the River Avon at Fordingbridge has been designated as a bathing site – one of 27 new sites announced last week with much fanfare by the Government. My worry, reading this news, is that visitors to this popular tourist spot on the north-west fringe of the New Forest will consider Fordingbridge a safe place to swim. After all, the River Avon in Hampshire is one of the world’s rare chalk streams, given the highest level of protection to any river in the country as a Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
The reality couldn’t be more different. It is no secret that England’s waterways have never been in worse shape, with 54 per cent more sewage spills last year compared with 2022, with raw sewage discharging into our rivers and seas for more than 3.6 million hours. And in Fordingbridge, the situation is critical.
Sampling carried out last year by For the Love of Water (Flow) CIC, a local non-profit organisation, in conjunction with Surfers Against Sewage, found significant levels of faecal indicator organisms (FIOs), including E.coli, in water from the Hampshire Avon at Fordingbridge as well as nearby Downton and Salisbury. Indeed, if they’d been tested by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), three sites would have been rated “poor” in 2023.
That sampling will now be carried out officially during the bathing season – May 15 to September 30 – by the Environment Agency (EA) at Fordingbridge and the 450 other designated bathing sites across England and the causes of pollution traced. Early results are, unsurprisingly, bad. The first EA sample from Fordingbridge, taken on May 2, showed E.coli levels at three times higher than the threshold for “sufficient” bathing water status.
Given the amount of filth going into the water, it’s no wonder: in 2022, there were 38 spills amounting to 228.23 hours of discharge. In 2023 those figures rose to 134 spills with 1,610.45 hours of discharge – that’s a 600 per cent increase in discharge hours.
Flow CIC director Adam Ellis said the problem is compounded by rain. “During our testing last year, levels were really low when it hadn’t been raining, but as soon as it rains, pollution shoots through the roof – whether that’s from agricultural run-off or sewage.
“We regularly count more than 150 people in the river at Fordingbridge on a hot day, and while I don’t want to scare people from going in completely, we do say don’t swim for 48 hours after any rain – we really noticed FIO levels spike up.”
When I fell ill in 2022, it was during a very hot and rainless spell, and I’d been very careful not to put my head under the water. Readers of my subsequent article disputed how I could have picked up an infection without ingesting water; so this week I consulted leading consultant gastroenterologist Dr Ray Shidrawi.
“You can get an infection from swimming in polluted without a break in the skin,” he confirms. “You are more exposed through your mucous membranes: eyes, mouth, nose. But yes, you can get infected even without a break in the skin.”
I also can’t remember washing my hands, showering or washing off my dog immediately after returning home – it was a hot Friday evening so I probably cracked open a gin and tonic and started preparing supper.
Fordingbridge resident Erica Kirkland, 80, is part of a tight-knit group of local wild swimmers, taking twice-weekly dips in the Avon throughout the year. “I love it and am addicted to it, I really think it helps my arthritis and I’ve never been ill from swimming,” she says. “But when we do go in, we all swim heads-up, breaststroke. Nobody does crawl and we all have handwash for when we get out and handle any food – we’re a very social group and we all eat together afterwards.”
Erica helped Flow CIC take samples from the river last year. “As soon as it rains, the drains can’t cope,” she says. “I do think getting this bathing water status is a step in the right direction, because there is now funding to test and track where the sewage is coming from which has got to highlight what’s going on. We want things to change as much for us as the wildlife – there are kingfishers, swans and cygnets at Fordingbridge at the moment. The river and its banks are bursting with loveliness.”
Local authorities responsible for designated bathing waters are required to provide information at each site during the bathing season, including the current classification of the water, information concerning pollution incidents and a link to the EA’s water sampling database with more information. The New Forest District Council, which is responsible for Fordingbridge, told me they are in the process of producing the required signage and that “this will be in place as soon as possible”.
I’ll be interested to read what it says, because if a bathing water is classified as “poor” the council must also display the “advice against bathing” symbol. So the government’s shiny new bathing site will essentially be unswimmable – a picture likely to be replicated across the country if last year’s readings are anything to go by. There were only three rivers designated as bathing sites in 2023 – in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and the Isle of Wight – and all three were classified as “poor”.
While the storm overflow at Fordingbridge has been fitted with a monitor, along with the rest of the UK’s water network, I can’t see how the situation is going to improve with the increasing pressure on the sewage network. In the past four years, two new housing estates have been built in Fordingbridge, adding 120 new homes to the area, with another estate of 200 houses on the way. With each average family home producing roughly 100,000 litres of “grey” waste water a year that is a potential 32 million extra litres of waste going down the drain locally by the end of this decade.
While the Environment Secretary has announced £180 million in fast-tracked water company investment over the next 12 months, it is something we’re all going to have to pay for – water bills are expected to rise between 15 and 70 per cent next year.
So while many are celebrating last week’s news, as someone who has been directly affected by the poor state of our rivers, I can only see a depressing picture.
Another local river campaigner agrees. Charles Watson, a New Forest resident, is chairman of River Action – the group made famous by its high-profile vice chairman, singer Feargal Sharkey. Last week, he told the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), comprising MPs across all parties, that regular E.coli testing should be performed up and down all rivers, irrespective of bathing sites.
“This is a scandal,” Watson says. “It is a national health issue and the Government is doing the bare minimum. We believe people have already died as a result of contact with our rivers. The blast of E.coli testing we did in the lower stretches of the Thames around the time of the Boat Race last month resulted in an overwhelming number of messages from the public. One woman wrote to us saying her husband died of septicaemia after swimming in the river – of course, sadly, this can’t be proven. We had myriad parents from different schools whose kids became ill after kayaking and rowing in the Thames – it’s not just what you swallow, if you’re a rower you can be infected from blisters on your hands.”
When The Telegraph conducted its own water tests on May 17 at Fordingbridge, levels of E.coli were indeed worryingly high: nearly seven times the Defra threshold for “sufficient” quality for water bathing. Levels of intestinal enterococci were 7.87 times the threshold.
Watson says that, although the Government is monitoring sewage overflows, many more spills are undisclosed. “Some 21 per cent of sewage spills in 2023 were from what the EA calls ‘infiltration’, which is broken and cracked pipes, totally non-weather related,” he says. “Like the major pipeline that burst in Blackpool and closed the beach last June. Designation of bathing water must go hand-in-hand with further measures to improve biodiversity – along with this week’s announcement, and a bit of testing for six months of the year, what is being done to make water safe? There is no tangible action and we need a set of measures to improve safety.”
A Defra spokesperson says: “Designating a bathing water is about ensuring there is regular monitoring at popular bathing sites, 90 per cent of which were ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ last year, and in areas of poorer quality it gives the Environment Agency the information it needs to take action – and there are many examples of where bathing waters have been improved as a result.
“We agree pollution in our waterways is unacceptable, regardless of the source. It’s why we are consulting on banning water bosses’ bonuses when criminal breaches have occurred, fast-tracking investment into the system to cut pollution, quadrupling water company inspections this year, funding an increase in checks on farms to help reduce agricultural run-off.”
A Wessex Water spokesperson, meanwhile says that: “Rivers will always have bacteria in them – from wildlife, agricultural run-off and roads as well as regulated storm overflows and treated sewage discharges. The safety of swimming at specific locations is for councils and others to determine. “But we want to help people make an informed choice, so we’re delivering real-time water quality information at popular inland and coastal recreational sites that goes beyond current bathing water testing. Meanwhile, we continue to invest in multi-million projects to improve river health.”
But for Watson, this will provide little succour for bathers until safety measures are set. “There is a real danger that people will go in designated bathing water sites and get ill.”
