Scarborough South Bay bathing water rating needs to be deferred - Yorkshire Post Letters

Many will recall our years of conflict with Yorkshire Water in the 1980s/90s in our campaign to stop untreated sewage being discharged to the sea. This being finally achieved in 2022 with the opening of a full treatment plant, our concern moved on to solving the enigma of persistent poor bathing water results in the South Bay and it will come as a surprise to many to learn that our past differences were set aside many years ago to enable sharing of research including consultants’ reports.

We have, therefore, much confidence that upgrades in effluent quality will achieve significant improvements in bathing water quality next year.

It is important, however, to note that the classification of bathing water into categories of Excellent, Good, Sufficient and Poor are based on the average of results of samples taken over the previous four years.

Such results are not, therefore, in real time and can only be taken as a rather crude indicator of present conditions.

The nearest to real time would require laboratory work of taking seawater samples in sterile conditions, plating overnight, counting any colonies the next day and a report not likely till the day after.

In short, no one can know what the seawater quality is when they enter the sea. Nevertheless, such samples examined in relation to tidal flows are hugely important in identifying pollution sources impacting on the South Bay despite its anomalies of circulatory currents.

To avoid being placed again next year in the Poor rating category under the four year average rule even before the start of the season it is hoped that the Environment Agency might be willing, subject to satisfactory results of tests on the substantially upgraded effluent quality, to consider deferring a rating for the South Bay for the 2024 bathing season until the full year’s sampling results are available.