Surfers say most bathing sickness stems from "excellent" waters in latest quality report

Environmental activist group, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has reported that close to 2,000 people over the past year each took about a day off work due to illness contracted from entering UK coastal waters and rivers with 60% of reported cases arising from waters designated “excellent”.

The figures were included in the group’s Water Quality Report 2023 in which it called for regulation to include “capping bonuses and making dividends dependent on environmental performance.”

The group called on all parties in the General Election scheduled for 2024 to adopt its five point plan to:

• “enforce the law,

• stop pollution for profit,

• prioritise high-risk pollution events,

• empower a nature-led approach and

• reveal the truth.”

Under its “enforce the law” call it added: “We have the regulations and laws we need

to end sewage pollution. Now we must enforce them.” It demanded that:

• “regulators uphold the law;

• regulators are well funded and resourced; and

• polluters pay.”

Elsewhere in the report SAS added: “We need changes to the regulations to create an enhanced testing regime, monitoring for additional pollutants all year round (including phosphates, nitrates, microplastics and antibiotic resistance).

On prioritising high-risk pollution SAS proposed:

• “immediate, targeted action to tackle the highest-risk pollution events, which include those

• impacting on designated bathing sites and other popular water user sites.”

Its nature-led approach demands were:

• “remove barriers to the adoption of nature-based solutions; and

• require water companies to prioritise the use of innovative and effective nature-based solutions.”

It added: “From sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and constructed wetlands at a local level, to landscape scale restoration projects, nature has a huge potential to relieve the pressure on sewer overflows.”

Examples of revealing the truth included:

• “UK-wide transparency about sewage pollution;

• accurate and accessible real-time water quality information all year round;

• A transparent bathing water application process;

• water quality testing that shows the full picture; and

• transparency across the sewerage system.”

In response to the SAS report a Water UK spokesperson said: "Water industry investment has transformed coastal bathing water with a sevenfold increase in the number of beaches achieving an “excellent” from the Environment Agency since the 1990s.

"We now need to do the same for our rivers and inland bathing areas to ensure we meet public expectation. To do this companies are proposing to invest £11 billion over the next seven years to massively reduce storm overflows and radically improve our rivers for bathing and other recreational activities."