A coastal town is waiting with dread to see if it’s hit with a no-swim warning, following a concerning rise of E.coli in the sea, which would be “cataclysmic” for the town.
Water quality ratings for popular bathing spots across Folkestone and the Romney Marsh will be announced later this year, but it’s feared a low ranking could spells disaster for Dymchurch, after high bacteria levels were discovered.
Earlier this month, Environment Agency’s (EA) figures revealed that E.coli figures at Dymchurch beach on the Romney Marsh had increased 12-fold in a matter of weeks.
The water at Dymchurch over the past four years has contained higher levels of E.coli than neighbouring beaches at Littlestone and St Mary’s Bay – where do-not-swim warnings are already in place after receiving the lowest possible ratings from the EA.
At a meeting of Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s (FHDC) overview and scrutiny committee yesterday, representatives of the EA and Southern Water were questioned by councillors.
An FHDC officer explained: “This year in particular there’s also considerable concern around the test results at Dymchurch and unfortunately there’s also been a bit of a spike at the beginning of September in Folkestone Sunny Sands.”
The EA is responsible for testing samples at bathing areas and categorising their quality, using the rankings Excellent, Good, Sufficient, or Poor.
The EA takes 20 samples from each site they monitor every year and tests them for various pollutants to devise the ratings.
Rosie Cansdale, a team leader at the EA, explained to councillors: “We get the results of the classifications late November to early December.
“The results are embargoed before then, so we aren’t allowed to talk about the results even if we knew them – and that’s under the bathing water regulations.”
She said there is some improvement at St Mary’s Bay, which was ranked as poor in 2022.
She explained: “The samples at St. Mary’s Bay are a lot better this year.
‘This is going to really really hurt the community if the worst happens…’
“The pollution sources are very diffuse there – we’ve found when we did our analysis, dog faeces, lots of avian DNA, human faeces from missed [sewer] connections and also a bit of agricultural input from cattle.”
Cllr Tony Hills (Con), who represents Romney Marsh on FHDC and the county council, claimed the recent spike in bacteria levels at Dymchurch could have dire consequences.
Fearing a no-swim warning there next year, he said: “Dymchurch is cataclysmic – I’m the member for Dymchurch, and that’s going to decimate businesses.
“Everybody’s said we need more investment, more time, anything that can be done because this is going to really really hurt the community if the worst happens.
“I hope it doesn’t, but I personally don’t think the system as I understand it is fit for purpose.”
Earlier in the meeting, Mrs Cansdale said that the EA’s work on testing and categorising bathing water doesn’t have its own direct budget.
“The 1500 hours we’ve spent on this so far has come from other projects because it doesn’t have individual funding.
“If you want to do something to help you could lobby your MP for additional funding for us,” she suggested.
Cllr Hills added: “We need a lot more investment in this – I think our whole system needs revising and if I get my hands on our MP I will recommend that he does it.”
E. Coli is found many places but is a major indicator of pollution when tasting bathing water, as it is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms.
As such, abnormally high readings generally indicate contamination with human or animal faeces, but it is accepted that there are sometimes other explanations.
The EA says the presence of the microbe can be caused during heavy rainfall in which soil potentially containing the bacteria is washed into rivers, streams, lakes or groundwater.
