Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to improve the bathing standard in the (a) River Ver and (b) River Lea.

The Government is committed to improving the quality of bathing water at designated sites around the country, as an important contributor to many people’s mental and physical health. However, as these two sites are not designated bathing waters they are not covered by the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. This means that the Environment Agency does not monitor for intestinal enterococci and E. coli, the bacteria used to assess bathing water quality.

They Environment Agency manages rivers and other open water locations that are not designated as bathing waters for the purpose of protecting fish and wildlife, rather than people, so health risks from using these locations may be higher than at designated bathing waters. Anyone can become unwell when swimming in open waters. UK Health Security Agency and the Environment Agency offer advice in the ‘swim healthy’ guidance, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/swim-healthy-leaflet/swim-healthy.

More information on designated bathing waters can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bathing-waters-list-of-designated-waters-in-england.

The Environment Agency also publishes the water quality data that they hold. This information can be accessed via the following link: Open WIMS data.