The English beach that may ‘never be safe to swim in again'
Heacham Beach won a "Brown Flag" award earlier this year, which is given to the dirtiest beaches in the UK.
3
Heacham Beach may never be a swimmable beach
Credit: Alamy
3
High pollution levels in the water have been attributed to bird waste
Credit: Alamy
The unofficial award is a version of the
Not only that, but the beach has been classified as poor quality since 2021 by the Environment Agency, with high levels of
The dirty waters have been credited to animal waste coming from seabirds - as much as 60 per cent - rather than sewage waste.
The
bacteria
levels are highest in July and August - the peak tourist season - although the reasons are still being discussed.
Read more on beaches
Suggestions include a lack of rainfall and an increase in tourism.
West
Norfolk
Council cabinet member for environment, Sandra Squire, said: "Sooner or later we may have to admit, if 60 per cent of
She added: "If Anglian Water said they cannot cope, then nothing else should be connected to that sewage works.
"We all know what happens when they can't cope - we end up with sewage in our streets, our rivers and seas."
Most read in News Travel
Year-round testing is being suggested to work out the reason for the pollution, as most if done during the summer period.
Not only that, but it could soon get even worse.
Everyone can see the beach but only those with a high IQ can spot five differences in 32 seconds in this brainteaser
Anglian Water's (AW) sewage works recently said they were nearing capacity - meaning potentially more pollution.
Ms Squire added: "If Anglian Water said they cannot cope, then nothing else should be connected to that sewage works.
"We all know what happens when they can't cope, we end up with sewage in our streets, our rivers and seas".
It also means tourists are unlikely to visit the beaches if it continues, with on local saying he was met with an "appalling stench of sewage" while there.
Following it's Brown Flag Award - with Heacham being one of 13 in the UK to get one - other visitors have also said they worry about being able to swim in it.
One mum, who visits every day with her daughter, said it was "not very pleasant" to look out.
She told the
"Some days there's foam on the water which is a brown colour."
Anglian Water is now
investing
more than £31million into improving the waters in the region, up to 2027.
In the mean time, we've rounded up some of the
And here is a pretty
3
Millions of pounds are being invested into the surrounding areas to clean up the waters
Credit: Alamy
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The Irish Sun
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- The Irish Sun
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The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
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The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
Sunbed romps, boob contests & filthy foam parties – my VERY wild years working 18-30 hols… & which resort was the worst
From randy reps who kept count of their 'conquests' to sex in the bushes, our writer was in the thick of it when the notorious package holidays were at their messy, X-rated peak 'BUTLIN'S WITH SEX' Sunbed romps, boob contests & filthy foam parties – my VERY wild years working 18-30 hols… & which resort was the worst YOU SPOTTED them at the airport first. Anyone going on an el cheapo 18-30 holiday back in the 80s and 90s started their trip at the bar. By the time they were on the early hours flight, at least one would have puked and someone else snuck off with one of the air hostesses. Advertisement 12 Club 18-30 holidays were once a rite of passage for young Brits, like these pictured partying in Ibiza in 2001 Credit: Getty 12 The wild holidays were notorious for boozy, raunchy games Credit: Rex Features 12 Hooking up on holiday was practically part of the package deal Credit: Alex Segre 12 Sex party games were a common feature of the holidays across Europe Credit: Alamy 12 A young Sam Brick during her time filming documentaries about notorious party hotspots Advertisement A Club 18-30 was a rite of passage in the 80s and 90s. As soon as the plane landed the holiday reps - who gave an X-rated meaning to customer satisfaction - commandeered their holidaymakers marching them straight onto the shuttle coaches. No matter what time of day or night it was, boozy shots were handed out. Coaches packed with young adults - just about old enough to vote - would be whizzed off to the dingiest of hotels for a week of sun(burn), sand, sea and lots of shagging. Throughout my 20s I worked as a TV executive, overseeing shows in Mallorca's Magaluf, Greece's Malia and the worst of the lot, Ibiza's San Antonio, which should have been renamed Orgy-on-Sea. All were 18-30 hotspots and make no mistake, Brits took over any resort they landed in. Advertisement To be a holiday rep you need the drinking stamina of an elephant and the energy of the Duracell bunny Samantha Brick Now, almost a decade after Malia outlawed these boisterous holidays, The Sun revealed how tourism bosses are desperate to get us back. Known as 't*ts & tequila' tourism, 18-30 holidays were a cheap and cheerful way for skint youngsters to travel abroad and have some good old fashioned fun. It cost peanuts to get sozzled on San Miguel or Sangria. The beaches were always full. Young Brits would use the sunbeds for tanning by day and have sex by night. The locals might have moaned about cleaning up afterwards - but back then the mantra of the era was 'we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time.' Advertisement Malia's party scene makes a comeback The kind of behaviour my generation indulged in would send most of the snowflake generation into fits. These were never holidays for the 'gram. No one was posting thirst shots or TikToks - instead they were hellbent on having a good time. For us Gen Xers, a holiday on the Med was the peak of the year. Nothing, NOTHING could spoil it for us. Suitcase lost? Oh well, we'll just wash our knickers on repeat. Flight delayed? More drinking time at the airport! We didn't do a Gen Z and complain on Twitter/X about every unanticipated spit and cough. And we definitely didn't threaten to leave bad social media reviews if there wasn't any fresh mint for our (paid for by our parents) Mojitos. Advertisement As for a spreadsheet or – even worse – an app to work out who owed what at the end of the hols? Who wants to party in the sun with the Grinch? An 18-30 holiday transformed the virgin geek into a sex god. Turned the chubby bestie who no one would look at twice back home into a come-hither sex goddess. And a banana boat inflatable zipping along the Med's waters sorted out the wimps from party animals. The 18-30 ethos was pretty much that everyone was there for cheap alcohol, sex and maybe a tan. It was Butlins spliced with booze and sex. The hotels were at best described as basic. I saw cockroaches. Dorm beds that had stains in them. Unsafe balconies that give modern day health and safety reps the willies. The pools were about as clean as a jacuzzi after a rugby team had celebrated in it. Advertisement But no one cared. No one was ever up for brekkie so who knows what was on offer. Menus were pictures of fast food and everything came with chips. The majority of teens on the holiday were usually on their first fortnight away from home. At the start of any 18-30 holiday the reps gather holidaymakers to sign up for everything from booze cruises, bar crawls, toga nights, foam parties and outings to a water park. This was how the reps made their dosh. When you're on an 18-30 holiday, signing your daily responsibilities away to someone not much older than you is obligatory. Randy contests 12 Girls were not shy of flashing in public, says Sam Credit: Alamy Advertisement 12 Racy games were organised by the holiday reps themselves Credit: Alamy 12 Daytime was for sunbathing and trying to sleep off hangovers Credit: Club 18-30 Take the first night excursion I filmed. It was a hot July night in the late Nineties. Two hundred holidaymakers poured off four coaches at an open-air nightclub in the middle of the countryside in Ibiza. While everyone is being counted off their bus, a hedgerow nearby rocks violently back and forth. Two minutes later, a flustered couple steps out. He does a fist pump to his mates and she pulls down her boob tube, flashing her breasts at her girlfriends. The same guy went on to have sex with five other women that evening. Advertisement Everything you've ever heard about the reps is … true. Yes, they did keep a running score about who shagged the most women over the season. In every resort I have filmed at, the reps have kept score of the number of women they had sex with. Did the girls know this? Absolutely. Did they care? No. The party games were notorious. Sex underpins the 18-30 experience and the games designed by the reps encourage it Samantha Brick It is primal. Sex on holiday isn't about love and happy ever after. More than once I heard it described as an itch that needed to be scratched. They also scored extra points for a woman with the biggest boobs or 'minger'. Gen Z-ers - I know! This was not the era of wokeness. To be a holiday rep you need the drinking stamina of an elephant and the energy of the Duracell bunny. Many burnt out or got kicked out and sent back to the UK. Advertisement But they earned every penny. If they weren't at the police station sweet-talking the release of someone from jail, they were at the local hospital getting someone else stitched up. 'Era of the wet T-shirt' 12 Even the adverts played on the risque nature of the holidays to attract clients Credit: Image Courtesy of The Advertising Archives 12 It's no surprise many parents were reluctant to let their kids go on the trips Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd The party games were notorious. Sex underpins the 18-30 experience and the games designed by the reps encourage it. Whether it is passing a water-filled condom down a line using only your thighs, or timing who can put the condom on an oiled courgette the quickest. Forfeits included wearing a condom on your head or getting a jug of sangria poured over your boobs. This was the era of the wet T-shirt competition. Advertisement My theory is the more that a girl says 'no way', the more likely you are to see her on stage, arms in the air, egging the crowd on with her soaked top clinging to her braless boobs. Foam party nights were an excuse for exhibitionist sex. Cleaners would moan about the amount of mislaid pairs of knickers they'd clean up afterwards. My life as a Club 18-30 rep By Thea Jacobs WHEN Jane Barrett turned 18, her parents refused to let her head out on a notorious Club 18-30 holiday - so a year later she got a job working for the package holiday brand in Mallorca. Her time in the party destination was certainly eye-opening and a reason Jane, from Yorkshire, believes she did well in life. Now a CEO, she did two years for Club 18-30 in 1987 and 1988 and here recalls her wildest moments from the summers of mayhem. jane tells The Sun: "It was the worst job in the world but also the best job in the world. The way female reps were treated was appalling. We were bullied and subjected to misogynistic behaviour all the time. "I had groups of lads shouting at me 'get your t*ts out' and blowing up condoms with their nose. I'm sure they all thought it was very inventive, but I saw it all the time. "And the male reps were just like dogs on heat, but what bloke wasn't at that age? "You worked 10am until 2am seven days a week. It's the only job I've had where people would sneak off to the nightclub loos to get a five-minute nap in a stall. We were exhausted. "But most of my job was making sure people had a really fun time and being there if anything happened like flights being cancelled or needing to go to the bank. "In my first year in 1987, I was asked by a hotel member of staff to go and check how many people were in a room, as they thought there were too many. "I knocked on the door, and it opened, inside were five guys and three girls all completely naked. I was naive back then, so I was really shocked. "I just turned to the hotel worker and said I thought there were too many people in the room but didn't know what else to do. "When taking people to events on a bus, I'd have them climbing over seats to be on the correct side as we went up a hill. We did bar crawls wearing clothes inside out. "We did the classic fizz buzz drinking game to get people wasted and the sexual innuendo games. It was all in good fun. "The hotels tended to be absolute dumps, but people would get drunk and smash them up so I understand why they didn't want to put the groups in nice places. "One room I was given had no windows and was in a basement, it was gross. "I became really close with the other reps, and we had this tradition of going to a Wimpy Burger at the end of the night. "People just had a wild time and it was all good fun. I think kids these days are missing out. People could be free because there were no smartphones. "It was just bonkers, and no one got seriously hurt on my watch." It was routine to see kids drinking until they vomited … and then they'd start drinking again. I lost count of the number of kids I filmed with who ended up phoning their parents for a cash transfer. And if you weren't at a bodega downing shots in the day time, then at night you'd be on a bar crawl. Shot girls would sell all sorts of disgusting alcohol heavy-drinks. There was none of this mocktail this or a matcha tea that. Even on a girl's night out it was all goldfish cocktails and vino collapso. Advertisement Admittedly, by the end of each bar crawl it wasn't unusual to see couples attempting to have sex against the bar, someone crashed out on the pavement in his urine-stained jeans or a girl face down in a goldfish-sized cocktail bowl of her own vomit. It was rare to find 18-30 holidaymakers sunbathing by the pool before noon or on the beach at all. Most were usually sleeping off hangovers. That's why at departures you always knew when someone had been on an 18-30 holiday. They'd return home either without a tan, sunburnt or with their eyebrows missing because they'd forfeited them in a drinking game. Yeah, they'd circled the drain of shame after consuming way too much sangria and other psychedelic-coloured cocktails, but they had the best of memories. There was no adulting, life-ing or social media involved. And what teenager can truly say that nowadays about their favourite holiday? Advertisement 12 Holidaymakers felt safe to be silly as there was no social media at the time Credit: Rex Features
