England's first ‘inland bathing water' could lose status after poor ratings

Times

3 days ago

At Becky Malby's home in one of Britain's prettiest towns, powerful figures in the water industry and politicians met four years ago to talk about the country's first official swimming river.
Held in the campaigner's garden in the market town of Ilkley, West Yorkshire, Jonson Cox, the Ofwat chair, Liz Barber, Yorkshire Water chief executive, the local Tory MP Robbie Moore and officials had to observe the pandemic's two-metre social distancing rules.
Instead of a PowerPoint presentation, they gathered around enormous, data-laden boards showing the state of the River Wharfe. Just six months earlier there had been jubilation when a section of it at Ilkley was designated England's first inland bathing water.
The problem, Malby explained to her guests, was that the status hadn't galvanised action to make the river reliably safe to swim in. 'We were just struggling to get anybody to pay attention to the fact that this level of pollution was happening in the river and no one was taking responsibility for it,' she said.
The meeting appeared to be a turning point. In a letter to the campaigner afterwards, Cox wrote of the garden chat: 'It was encouraging that all parties want to make this a success'.
Everyone present, he said, by 'common acceptance' saw the bathing water at Ilkley 'as an opportunity to act pragmatically'.
Barber could not have given Malby a 'higher assurance' that she was going to act, he said.
However, four years later there remains a warning sign up near the pebbled edge of the bathing water. Like every year since 2021, it reads: 'Bathing is not advised'. For four years in a row, the spot has been rated poor by the Environment Agency — below sufficient, good and excellent — meaning swimmers risk illness from bacteria. Initial samples taken this summer suggest it will be classed as poor again in 2025.
If it wasn't for Labour changing the rules, the river would almost certainly lose its bathing water status this November when 2025's classification is published. Poor water for five years running used to mean automatic de-designation, but decisions will now be made on a case-by-case basis.
What went wrong for this flagship plan? Can the Wharfe still prove a pioneering model other communities can copy, or is it just a costly mistake that may never make the river safe for swimming?
Bathing water status has been around for decades for hundreds of beaches. It is no guarantee a site is safe to swim, but ensures regular testing for E. coli and intestinal enterococci, which could make a swimmer sick. The idea of an inland bathing water was new when Malby and locals publicly launched a campaign for one at the Wharfe in 2018.
The spot she had in mind, known as Cromwheel at Ilkley, seemed perfect. 'It's much like you'd expect a beautiful British river. It's a fast-flowing wide river. It ebbs and flows a lot, it's peaty, so the water's always a little bit smooth to feel. We get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people here in the holidays. They all bring their picnics from all walks of life, from all cultures and backgrounds, all race, creed and colour. You see a lot of people in the river,' she said.
So why bother making it a bathing water?
'It was the only way you could hold the water companies and the regulators to account for the fact that there's loads of shit in the rivers,' said the 61-year old, who swims in the Wharfe several times a week. So many academics are now testing the river, she calls it an 'innovation lab' that will give people elsewhere in the country an idea of how much it might cost to 'fix' their waterway.
For Yorkshire Water, that cost looks to eventually be a total of £60 million. Around £55 million will have been spent by next April, on curbing sewage spills from outfalls and treating sewage using an aerated bed of rushes and wetland.
Adam Ashman, head of strategic planning at the firm, said of Ilkley's designation: 'It's been a good thing in terms of creating a debate and it's obviously led to lots of bathing waters [on other rivers].'
But some insiders question whether it's the best place to spend the money.
'All the funding that has been going into Ilkley would have been much better spent in areas that really needed it, where the population don't have the economic and educational advantages of knowing how to get things done,' one staffer at Yorkshire Water said.
Alan Smith, who used to work for Yorkshire Water and now runs the Water People consultancy, argued the investment was misguided. 'Political PR over science is costly. We all want cleaner rivers but not where the hapless billpayer shoulders the burden for over-zealous, well-connected lobbying,' he said.
The average Yorkshire Water bill is expected to rise 41 per cent to £607 by 2030.
Jo Bradley, a former EA official who leads the charity Stormwater Shepherds, said she feared river bathing waters were skewing investment.
'It's a bit of a mess. Yorkshire Water is spending millions dealing with storm overflows [relief valves that spill sewage] to try and make it [the Wharfe] swimmable. They will never make it sterile so that it's safe to swim in. There's a bloody Lido in Ilkley. Swim in the bloody Lido,' she said.
Malby, who is a visiting professor at the University of York, rejected the accusation that the bathing water was elitist. She said 'masses of people who cannot afford to use public swimming pools,' including many from Bradford, used the Ilkley swimming spot.
Private septic tanks, campsites and fish farms are among the reasons for Ilkley's poor status, but sewage and agricultural pollution are the two big ones. When it is dry there are similar levels of bacteria from humans as there are from cows and sheep upstream in the catchment, the EA has said. But following rainfall, the contribution from livestock is much more significant than from people, keeping bacteria levels high in the river for 48 hours after it rains.
There are some indicators that farming is the bigger polluter. DNA analysis of 42 water samples taken at the bathing water found 66 per cent of one type of bacteria were from ruminants, and 34 per cent from humans, an unpublished EA study seen by The Times shows. However, the report said the comparison remains uncertain.
Some groups, such as the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, have been working with farmers and landowners in the upper Wharfe to curb run-off from fields. The EA said it continues 'to work closely with local farmers and groups on slurry and manure management'. But it's clear farming's role in the poor bathing water has not seen the sort of the spotlight directed at Yorkshire Water.
Since the Wharfe's splash in 2020, dozens of rivers have been designated. More are expected to follow after applications for new ones were reopened in May. The Times' Clean it Up campaign has urged a big expansion of them, while the government said it will cut pollution with its upcoming reforms.
Yorkshire Water's anti-pollution efforts at Ilkley ramp up next year. Ashman expects the benefits to be felt there when the bathing season starts in May 2026. However, he fears the background level of agricultural pollution could be enough to 'keep it at poor'.
Malby admits farming pressures means the Ilkley bathing water is unlikely to ever be rated good, but she is confident it can get to sufficient.
'When we started this, we were told by the EA it would be 30 years before we could get anything done,' she said. 'It won't be 30 years, it'll be ten years, which is still ridiculous. I can't believe it's ten years. But we should see an impact.'