Councillor Kevin Foster has written a letter of support for Save Our Swale’s bid for bathing water status designation. If successful, it would be the third in the County. Bathing water status doesn’t mean the water is clean, but it will ensure regular testing during peak bathing months, with the results available for all to see on the Environment Agency website.
The bid comes on the back of local concerns about water quality voice by local campaign group Save our Swale. Earlier this year, they said that their citizen-led testing programme had raised red flags about the quality of treated water discharged by Yorkshire Water at Richmond Sewage Treatment Works into the Swale. Save our Swale are hoping for answers when Yorkshire Water attend the Richmond Area Committee meeting on Monday.
Cllr Kevin Foster (Green Party):
We want the community to be safe. Until water safety is improved, people need to have the information they need to make decisions about spending time in or on the river. And it’ll also give us better evidence to get water companies to step up and take action to improve water quality. It’s ridiculous that we have to make the case not to put sewage and other nasties in our rivers, but sadly at the moment, that’s what’s happening.
The Greens at North Yorkshire Council have been campaigning on this issue for some time – the water companies need to do more to improve their infrastructure, and the Environment Agency need to robustly enforce regulations. Obviously because they’re privately owned, they don’t have our best interests at heart – they’re answerable to their shareholders, and making sure they can pay huge bonuses.
This is the latest development of the Greens’ concerted effort to bring water quality to the top of the agenda, following Cllr Warneken’s successful motion to bring together all those involved in North Yorkshire’s rivers and coastline – including the council, wildlife groups and the three main water companies – to work together on water quality, linking into the scrutiny committee. He also supported Nidd Action Group by proposing the successful motion for bathing water status for the Nidd in 2023, seconded by Mike Schofield (Independent – [although at the time he was Lib Dem].
The original motion for the Swale designated bathing site bid was approved by the Council in 2024, proposed by Councillor Stuart Parsons (Lib Dem) and seconded by Kevin Foster.
The River Wharfe at Ilkley was the first river in England to be designated. There are now around 450 designated bathing water sites across England.
The issue of water pollution is a national problem and last Sunday Surfing England called off the English Interclub Surfing Championships in Porthtowan after the local council raised the red flag for the beach because of sewage discharge. Porthtowan has been a designated bathing site since 1996.
