The Daily Telegraph - Features
I swam in this new ‘bathing site’ – it’s full of sewage
Abigail Butcher, who was hospitalised after a dip in the River Avon, is alarmed by its fancy new designation
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 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. That stopped in July 2022 when I was hospitalised after swimming 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 District 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 a “bathing site” – one of 27 new ones announced last week with much fanfare by the Government. My worry about this 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 and Special Area of Conservation.
The reality is 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 and raw sewage discharging into our rivers and seas for more than 3.6 million hours.
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.
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 there were 134 spills with 1,610.45 hours of discharge – a 600 per cent increase in discharge hours. Flow CIC director Adam Ellis claims the problem is compounded by wet weather. “As soon as it rains, pollution shoots through the roof – whether from agricultural run-off or sewage,” he says.
When I fell ill in 2022, it was during a hot, rainless spell, and I’d been careful not to put my head under the water. Readers of my article disputed how I could have picked up an infection withut ingesting water; so this week I consulted leading consultant gastroenterologist Dr Ray Shidrawi.
“You can get an infection from swimming in polluted water 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.”
Fordingbridge resident Erica Kirkland, 80, is part of a tight-knit group of local wild swimmers, taking twice-weekly dips yearround in the Avon. “I love 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.
Kirkland believes the 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”.
Local authorities responsible for designated bathing waters are required to provide information at each site, including the classification of the water as “excellent”, “good”, “sufficient” or “poor”. If a bathing water is classified as “poor” the council must display the “advice against bathing” symbol, so the 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.
While the storm overflow at Fordingbridge has been fitted with a monitor, I can’t see how the situation is going to improve with the increasing pressure on the sewage network from two new housing estates and another on the way.
Steve Barclay, the Environment Secretary, has announced £180million in fast-tracked water company investment over the next 12 months, but 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 is just as alarmed. “This is a scandal,” says Charles Watson, a New Forest resident and chairman of River Action. “It is a national health issue and the Government is doing the bare minimum. We believe people have died as a result of contact with our rivers. We had myriad parents from different schools whose kids became ill after kayaking and rowing in the Thames.”
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My worry is that visitors to this popular spot will consider Fordingbridge a safe place to swim
its own water tests on May 17 at Fordingbridge, levels of E.coli were nearly seven times the threshold set by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs’s for “sufficient” quality for water bathing. 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. “Designation of bathing water must go hand-inhand with further measures to improve biodiversity – along with last 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.
“We agree pollution in our waterways is unacceptable; 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 and quadrupling water company inspections this year.”
A Wessex Water spokesperson says: “Rivers will always have bacteria in them. 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.”
For Watson, there will be little succour for bathers until tangible safety measures are set in motion. “There is a real danger that people will go in designated bathing water sites and get ill,” he says.