Peter Williams fightingpoolution.com 

Like many local residents, I was attracted to Budleigh by the dream of enjoying many golden days in and around our beautiful blue sea and iconic pebble beach. For many though, that dream has become a nightmare of almost daily sewage alerts, and fears over the safety of swimming off our beach. To some extent, web sites like this – along with the Escape FB page, have undoubtedly raised awareness of the threat caused by South West Water’s faulty sewage infrastructure and management. I don’t apologise for that, but I would say that our objective is to raise awareness and drive much-needed improvement, through posting carefully researched and accurate information.

However, I’ve lost count of the number of Facebook comments saying people are too scared to venture into the water. That’s a huge shame, and many times I believe, these fears may be unfounded – IF we consider the available data. In fact, throughout the last four Summer seasons, the sampled water quality has been excellent (approx 4% of the ‘Safe’ limit) around 80% of the time.

Although not ‘advice’, this post sets out my personal step-by-step guide to making informed decisions on when – and where – to swim.

STEP 1: Where NOT to swim, ever!

Every week between May and September, the Environment Agency sample the water quality at various points in all of our local brooks and the sea. The analysis of these samples is posted publicly here.

The 2023 sampling data shows that the large volume of water flowing out of Otter Mouth is typically 6 times the government’s ‘safe’ limit for bathing. That’s why I would never swim in the vicinity of the estuary mouth.

Even worse is the water flowing out of the Kersbrook, which emerges a few meters into the sea, straight out from the mini roundabout at Lime Kiln car park (line up the two yellow posts and that’s were the brook emerges). In 2023, the average water quality emerging from the stream was 14 times greater than the ‘safe’ limit. The volume of water coming out of the brook is usually quite low, so any pollution dissipates quickly. But again, I would never swim within 30 metres either side of the stream outfall.

To a lesser extent, the water flowing out of the Knowle Brook (Budleigh’s high street stream), was on average 11 times greater than the safe limit. Again, this dissipates quickly when it runs into the sea, but I would always avoid the immediate area.

You can see all of the sewage outfalls on this Google Map we have created. This includes data on all outfall locations and recent dumping performance.

STEP 2: Check the EA daily POLLUTION RISK FORECAST for Budleigh

Every morning the Environment Agency run a pollution risk forecast, which is published on this Gov UK web site, plus our own LoveBudleigh web site, with alerts published sometimes, but not always, on the SSRS app.

I recently compared the pollution risk forecasts over the last 4 years with the subsequently-published sample data analysis, and on every occasion that there was a pollution forecast, the water quality was actually poor or unsafe over the next 48 hours.

As a result, although the EA say that the alert only runs for 24 hours, I personally would never swim within 48 hours of a forecast alert being made.

STEP 3: Check the SSRS app to see if there is a pollution Alert from one of the Sewage Overflows. If so: check WaterFit to see WHICH overflow this comes from.

SSRS alerts happen when one of South West Water’s sewage overflow sensors are triggered, normally after at least 20 minutes of a sewage spill. These alerts can happen at any time of the day, but the SSRS alert does not show WHICH sewage overflow has been triggered.

Up to June 2024, SSRS has reported over 60 sewage alerts for Budleigh, more than any other year by a long way. The reason for 2024’s huge number of sewage dumps is because Lime Kiln sewage pumping station (which handles 100% of Budleigh’s sewage), is effectively ‘broken’. ‘Budleigh Sewage Action’ have organised a dedicated meeting with senior staff from South West Water, and invited several local EDDC councillors to attend and help present your views. Our objective is to fully understand the issues, and push SWW for a swift solution to this totally unacceptable situation.

This is where the risk-based approach to swimming comes in. Although many people are understandably put off by these almost daily alerts, it’s also true that when we have had alerts from Lime Kiln, but when NO EA Risk Forecast had been issued, AND there have been water samples analysed from the middle section of the beach, then the vast majority of times the sample subsequently comes back as ‘safe’. In fact, most times the water quality at the Telephone Box sampling location is Excellent (ie: around 4% of the ‘Safe’ E-coli level), even after an SSRS sewage discharge warning.

The reason for this may be linked to how the Lime Kiln pumping station is currently broken, and the fact that any sewage discharges are dumped on the East side of the Otter mouth (just past our iconic Otter Head cliffs).

So personally, I check the WaterFit web site and check WHICH of Budleigh’s overflows has been triggered. IF it is Lime Kiln (and 90% of the time it is), then I can make an informed, risk-based decision.

It’s also worth considering the layout of our beach, and think about the lowest-risk area is to swim.

So using our Budleigh Sewage Map, we can measure the distance from the Lime Kiln overflow outfall to the main beach area below Lime Kiln car park, which is about 600 meters. The distance from the outfall to the red telephone box by the Longboat Cafe – where the EA sampling is carried out – is 1km. But the distance from the outfall to Steamer Steps, where many of our residents actually swim, is 1.6km, or 1 mile distant.

So my personal view is that, IF there is NO EA POLLUTION FORECAST, and we get an SSRS alert – which I check with WaterFit is coming from Lime Kiln overflow, then I personally am normally happy to swim off Steamer Steps. The exception to this is if there has been recent heavy and prolonged rain, or if the alert comes from one of the other sewage overflows.

As I said, this is not advice as such, but simply the risk-based process which I use to determine if I’m happy to get out and enjoy our wonderful bay.