Budleigh Salterton 13/06/2024 08:30: Advice against bathing: pollution risk warning

From a Budleigh correspondent:

Dear Owl,

How can Budleigh Salterton beach be classified as “excellent” when time after time sewage is discharged into the sea?

I find it difficult to accept that if the Environment Agency (EA) issues an alert and declares this a “Short Term Pollution” event, samples from this event can be discounted. This is why, in total last year, Budleigh  had only 12 pollution risk warnings and the most recent classification is Excellent, based on samples taken from 2019 through to 2023

What sort of mind dreamt up this fix? It is all very well for the EA to say that

“The EA applies the law and issues real time alerts via Swimfo,and excludes samples in Short Term Pollution incidents from our data, just as our peer regulators across Europe do.” and

“It is also in line with World Health Organisation advice on best practice.”

Really, this “best practice” happens throughout the world? If this is the case surely the UK  needs to lead to stop this fiddle.

I would vote for any political party who could seriously try to sort this out.

A Budleigh Correspondent.

PS Another thing I do not understand is the regular number of tankers which are dyno-rodding their way through Budleigh High St. carrying sewage waste. And yet, today 13/06/24 Swimfo advises                                                                       

Budleigh Salterton

 Bathing is not advised today

Latest annual classification:

 excellent

Do we need to get more tankers on the job?