Public 'misled' over when it's safe to swim in the sea says Scarborough surf school owner

People are currently advised against bathing at two of Yorkshire’s best-known beaches – Scarborough’s South Bay and Bridlington's South Beach – because of the “poor” water quality.

Steve Crawford, who has been campaigning for cleaner water for decades, had to close his business this year because of the advice against swimming in the South Bay.

But the situation is far worse than the public realises, he said, with m ore than a dozen pipes dumping sewage into the sea, as well as industrial effluent and agricultural run-off.

The storm overflows used by water firms are meant to prevent sewage from backing up into homes and streets in heavy downpours.

One of the worst pipes in the country, a mile north of the bathing area, was running on and off all last week, except on Wednesday, he said. It finally stopped at midnight last Thursday, after nine hours spilling into the sea.

There were pollution alerts for Cayton Bay on the Safer Seas and River Service app, which uses real-time data from storm overflows, last Thursday and Friday, and for the North Bay almost every single day last week, he said.

But that wasn’t reflected on the Environment Agency’s Swimfo website, which relies on analysis of periodic water samples.

So while last Friday Swimfo carried the permanent advice against swimming at the South Bay, it described Cayton Bay and the North Bay as “excellent” with “no pollution incidents reported”.

That, Mr Crawford said, would mislead anyone who was thinking of travelling to the resort to swim that day. “If the public really knew how much pollution there was, they’d be incandescent,” he added.

It comes as a poll found 43 per cent of beachgoers were less likely to visit the seaside this summer because of sewage discharges.

Lib Dem environment spokesperson Tim Farron, inset, said: “Coastal communities are at the mercy of water companies who unapologetically discharge raw sewage into popular swimming spots.

“If this continues, tourists will turn away from British beach holidays, leaving small businesses and local tourism to suffer from their mess. This Conservative government needs to finally ban these disgusting sewage discharges.”

The Environment Agency (EA) said it is carrying out “in-depth investigations” of bathing waters in Bridlington and Ilkley, which could extend to Scarborough South Bay, “to see what more can be done to identify and better understand the sources of bacteria affecting water quality”.

An EA spokesperson said assessing levels of “faecal indicator organisms requires a laboratory analysis and days for these to be cultivated so can’t be measured in real-time”.

They said warnings were issued if there was a pollution incident or a forecast that suggested water quality would fall.

“Our pollution risk forecasts do not include notifications of storm overflow operations as a method to consistently assess the impact of spills on bathing waters has not yet been developed,” the spokesperson added.

"Water companies each have their own system to inform bathers when their storm overflows operate, which provides additional information on water quality.”

In a statement, Defra said: “Banning discharges overnight without any plan to fix storm overflows is reckless and would see sewage backing up into people’s homes and the street.”

It said water firms were required to spend £56bn to prevent harm from storm overflows in what was “the largest infrastructure investment in water company history”.

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