Following one of the hottest summers on record, which saw families flock to our region’s beaches, new data reveals the standard of water quality along our coastline.
Across the region’s 84 bathing waters, 79 have been ranked as Excellent or Good by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Meanwhile, three are rated Sufficient and two require improvement after being categorised as Poor. We are working with stakeholders to understand what has impacted quality in these areas, as analysis does not indicate any correlation between poor water quality and storm overflow activity.
The breakdown by county is as follows:
- Kent – 17 'Excellent' bathing waters, 11 'Good', and 1 Poor
- Sussex – 15 'Excellent' bathing waters, 9 ‘Good', 2 'Sufficient' and 1 Poor
- Hampshire – 12 'Excellent' bathing waters and 1 ‘Sufficient’
- Isle of Wight – 13 'Excellent' bathing waters (up from nine in 2017) and 2 'Good’
Southern Water has invested more than £32 million on improving bathing waters in the past five years including major programmes in Worthing, Sussex and Shanklin, Isle of Wight.
Toby Willison, Southern Water’s Director of Quality and Environment, said: “We play our part in improving the standard of bathing waters, through major investments in treatment works along our 700 miles of coast – and we are working hard to extend our efforts and partnerships with other agencies to make an even bigger positive impact.
“Customers rightly expect the water industry to eliminate the use of storm overflows, and we are developing our own plans to tackle this issue, while continuing to protect people’s homes from flooding.
“And while we have an important role to play in enhancing and maintaining water quality, there are a wide range of pollutions which have an impact – contaminated rainwater running off roads and agricultural land, wastewater from privately owned treatment works, boats and animals on the beach such as dogs and seabirds, and the overall steep rise in bathing water users all play a part. That’s why it is so important for all parties to work together.”
Southern Water’s Cleaner Rivers and Seas Taskforce is leading the industry in exploring engineering and nature-based solutions to ‘slow the flow’ of excess rainwater into sewers, which leads to overflows permitted by the Environment Agency.
However, Toby added: “During the 2022 bathing water season, we saw half the storm overflows of a year earlier, in part due to dry weather. And our analysis shows that bathing waters rated ‘Poor’ also saw fewer releases. This underscores just how many variables there are, and why it is so important that we continue to work closely with local councils and other partners to understand and tackle all causes.”
Find out more about Southern Water's bathing water quality and the part we play by reading our 2022 Bathing Water Season Update report.
Facts and stats:
- Our region boasts 700 miles of coastline and 84 designated bathing waters
- The way bathing water quality is measured is now twice as stringent as before, following the implementation of the revised European Bathing Water Directive in 2015.
- When Southern Water was formed in 1989 only 35 per cent of wastewater was treated before being released to the environment. Today 95 per cent is treated with the remaining five per cent being almost entirely permitted storm overflows to protect homes
- We tackle water quality from every direction – tracking down misconnected foul sewers, investigating our assets and processes, working with councils and land owners
- Our Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force is working on six pathfinder projects to demonstrate innovative and partnership approaches, to reducing the number of storm releases. Find out more on our website.