Recommendations for improving the guidance on bathing water designation
The Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Councillor Louise Gittins has written to Rt Hon Stephen Barclay MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to suggest changes to the guidance for applications for the designation of a bathing water.
The Council expressed regret in February this year when an application to designate part of the River Dee in Chester as a bathing water was unsuccessful.
Councillor Gittins has written an open letter on behalf of the Council and partners suggesting improvements to the guidance:
Said Councillor Gittins:
The current guidance fails to protect the health of the majority of the users of recreational waters. Despite the River Dee attracting 273 entrants to the Dee Mile, an event that has been running over 100 years, plus our established triathlons and aquathlons, these events are excluded from our designation application. On behalf of the Council’s cross-party Member Task Group of Places Scrutiny Committee, and with support from the Cheshire Federation of Women’s Institutes, Chester Frosties, Chester Residents’ Associations Group, Chester Sustainability Forum, Chester Triathlon Club, Deva Canoe Club, Friends of the Meadows, Royal Chester Rowing Club and all users of the river we are asking that the guidance and Bathing Water Regulations are amended, with the aim of ensuring that improvements in water quality are prioritised by the relevant water company. In the letter we suggest improvements to the guidance.
Suggested improvements:
1. Established organised events are excluded from the total number of bathers counted during the bathing season.
The River Dee has a number of historic, annual swimming events taking place throughout the year. This includes the Dee Mile that has been taking place for over 100 years. This race has a maximum capacity of 650 competitors but in recent years adverse publicity about sewage discharges and health concerns have eroded numbers and in August this year there were 273 swimmers who took part in the event. There are also two established triathlons, one in its 24th year, with a combined maximum number of 1100 competitors, and four established aquathlons.
Notwithstanding the lower numbers than in previous years, the number of participants still far outnumbers the bather number criteria set out in the Guidance. We do not see any sound reason why such events should be excluded from an assessment of bather numbers. In fact, we consider that established events with participant numbers at this level should automatically result in an application being approved and improvements in water quality being prioritised by the relevant water company.
2. The definition of a bather is too narrowly applied.
Defra advice on the definition of ‘bather’ in the Guidance is that it does not include children paddling and that they should be excluded from the counts. The rationale for the exclusion of children paddling is far from clear, given that the Guidance should give effect to this purposive legislation and its objective of protecting public health. The narrow application ‘bather’ is also at odds with the wider British definition of the word ‘bathe’ - to ‘swim or spend time in the sea or a lake, river, or pool for pleasure’. In this context, the wider definition of ‘bathe’ should be applied, and again, the exclusion of children paddling amounts to a foreseeable failure to protect children as an important user group.
3. The bather numbers requirement is set at too high a threshold and the Guidance fails to distinguish between highly variable sites.
The consequence of setting too high a threshold is the exclusion of many bathers and the resulting, foreseeable failure to protect their health. In our case, there were 65 and 54 bathers recorded respectively on two survey days, whose health should be, but is not being, protected because of the current arbitrary Guidance.
We believe the Guidance to be arbitrary because we are aware that the daily average number of bathers was lower in at least one previously successful application than in Cheshire West’s application. In addition, the criteria in the corresponding Northern Ireland guidance are as follows: ‘over 45 bathers on at least one occasion or over 100 beach users on at least two occasions across a review period’.
As can be seen from the citation above, the Northern Ireland guidance requires a higher threshold for beaches than for other sites and we believe that it is correct to make this distinction because in most cases, by the very nature of the site, beaches will cover a much larger area and be capable of accommodating many more bathers than, for example, river bathing spots. The fact that no distinction is made in the Guidance, unlike in the Northern Ireland guidance, strongly suggests that insufficient consideration has been given to the differences between sites.
In addition, there is a request, as part of the wider review of the Bathing Water Regulations 2013, that consideration is given to the inclusion of immersive sports such as paddleboarding and kayaking. Having grown in popularity in recent years, participants in these activities often enter the water as part of their safety and rescue training.