Four new wild swimming sites in England open for summer season

Wild swimming fans will be able to enjoy access to four new sites in the UK that are being designated as bathing waters ahead of summer, the government has announced.

The sites in Rutland, Devon and Suffolk will receive bathing water status from next month, meaning they will soon benefit from regular water-quality monitoring.

Sykes Lane Bathing Beach and Whitwell Creek at Rutland Water, Firestone Bay in Plymouth and a section of the River Deben at Waldringfield in Suffolk will be officially designated ahead of the 2023 bathing water season, taking the total number of official bathing waters across England to 424, the highest recorded.

The government said the proportion of bathing waters assessed as good or excellent has increased from 76% to 93%, while 72% are considered excellent, compared with 51% in 2010. This is despite classification standards for bathing waters being made stricter in 2015, it claims.

The announcement follows the publication last week of the government’s Plan for Water, which said water companies could face unlimited fines for dumping raw sewage in rivers, and outlined proposals that could see wet wipes containing plastic banned.

Labour said the plan amounted to a rehash of old policies and claimed the measures would not stop sewage being dumped.

The water minister, Rebecca Pow, said: “These popular swimming spots will now undergo regular monitoring, starting this May, so bathers have up-to-date information on the quality of the water. The regular monitoring also means that action can be taken if minimum standards aren’t being met.

“We now have more bathing waters than ever, and we’ve worked hard in recent years to boost their status – with an incredible 93% now classed as good or excellent – and our new Plan for Water will help us go further and faster on our targets.”

The Environment Agency will take regular samples at the newly designated sites during the bathing season, which runs from 15 May and 30 September. It will assess whether action is needed to cut pollution levels and work with local communities, farmers and water companies to improve water quality at the sites.

New swimming sites are selected on several criteria, including how many people bathe there, whether the site has suitable infrastructure and facilities, such as toilets, and where investment in water quality improvements after designation would have the most impact. Only applications that meet these factors are taken forward to public consultation.