Community leaders' fury after resort flooded with sewage on busiest bank holiday
Community leaders has voiced their anger over Yorkshire Water's failure to create sufficient infrastructure in Filey after tourists encountered human waste floating in the sea over the town's busiest weekend of the year.
Independent councillor Sam Cross said while masses of visitors usually flock to town’s large, gently sloping, sandy beach that expands dramatically as the tide goes out for the August bank holiday weekend, the bathing area appeared to be significantly quieter following ‘do not swim’ signs and red flags being put up on Saturday.
While lifeguards and RNLI staff tried to warn as many people as possible, Cllr Cross said more clear signs warning potential bathers not to swim should have been put up at the beach which he said had not had a blue flag for 11 years.
Speaking last night, he told The Yorkshire Post: "I’m pretty disgusted. I’m looking onto the sea and because of the poor weather there’s few people in the sea, but there’s people paddling now.Lifeguards should be out there telling them not to bathe.”
"I’m proud of our beautiful beaches and I’m saddened that this has happened. It is the busiest bank holiday of the year and our beaches should be for the tens of thousands of visitors that come.
"Everybody has been let down by Yorkshire Water. Filey has always been the gem of the Yorkshire coast, but due to the lack of work that has been done on the infrastructure sadly by Yorkshire Water it’s failing.”
Writing on social media, Bridlington South councillor Tim Norman said the latest discharge was “terrible news for Filey and by association very bad news for Bridlington on this the last busy weekend of the school holidays”.
He said there had been “almost a total correlation” between the time the combined sewer overflows were activated and the time that the rain started to fall.
Cllr Norman wrote: “Again, although I understand that it is imperative to ensure that no surface flooding happens and the wastewater remains in the system and not on the roads and in peoples' gardens, driveways or homes, the reputational damage to a resort so inextricably linked to the beach and seaside fun cannot be underestimated.
“It is obvious that there is very little or no emergency capacity in the system to cope with any rainfall during a summers day or night.”
Yorkshire Water has confirmed a "pollution risk forecast" was issued and stated it had discharged from a storm overflow on Friday after downpours left the town’s sewer network at capacity.
The sewer overflow discharges directly onto the centre of the beach, next to Church Ravine Beck.
According to the Top of the Poops website, Filey’s bathing area was polluted by sewage 60 times in 2025 over a combined period of 159 hours.
The controversy-hit water utility firm said it understood the strength of feeling around discharge to coastal areas and that it was investing heavily to bring the number of discharges down.
The firm said: "It is important to note that water quality can be impacted by many factors beyond storm overflow operation, but we're working with local stakeholders and community groups to identify and tackle these to do everything that we can to improve our bathing waters."