Excellent test results at the town are blighted by an unfair annual “poor quality” rating based on one off-the-scale E.Coli reading.
The people and businesses of Deal and Walmer are up to their necks in the brown stuff thanks to an Environmental Agency advisory against swimming in the sea off its beach.
Yet the water at Deal Castle Beach was mainly excellent last year, according to the agency’s own figures. So why did the public body issue the “advice against bathing” highlighting an E.Coli risk that will stand until September 2025?
Around 37,000 people and hundreds of businesses in Walmer and Deal could potentially be affected by the “poor quality” water rating as the local economy depends in many ways on the health of the water at its beach.
Deal Castle Beach’s water quality rating has fallen from “excellent” in 2019 to “poor” in 2024. It led to this year’s cancellation of the popular Deal Boxing Day Dip beside the pier, which raised serious concerns among residents and businesses.
The EA’s evaluation of a decline in water quality has not only affected local people’s confidence in the health of their environment. It could also deter tourists from visiting Deal, Walmer, and Kingsdown, which all have popular beachfronts.
A deep dive into EA statistics behind the “poor classification” slapped on the seaside town demonstrates that people would only be ill-advised to swim there a few days in the summer.
However, the EA rating that created all this local concern is based on readings at one location, and the overall average rating is published once a year.
Samples are taken each week. between May 1 and September 30, during what the EA describes as the swimming season. Apart from the fact that many people swim off the beach in the area all year round, the readings also fail to give much idea about quality along the rest of the 4.5-mile stretch of coast regularly used by swimmers.
To see how the EA’s classification can create a very distorted picture, you only have to look at the breakdown of its annual tests.
The samples taken at Deal Castle Beach in 2024 show a bathing water rating of “excellent” would be more appropriate than “poor”, for a vast majority of weeks.
The EA tests for two kinds of organisms: Escherichia coli or E. coli (EC) and Intestinal enterococci (IE).
Weekly E. Coli readings for 2024 would all fall in the “excellent category, apart from the one taken on August 23, which shot up from 27 colonies of bacteria per 100 ml the week before, to 3,900.
That is an increase of 144 times the previous week.
Weekly Intestinal Enterococci readings for last year were “excellent,” below 100, in all weeks apart from: September 6 (240: poor), August 23 (1,700: poor), July 24 (120: Good), and July 21 (340: poor).
Clearly, the off-the-scale readings for August 23 have distorted the annual rating of Deal Castle Beach, which would otherwise have been Good or Excellent in 2024.
August 23 is the only time you would have seriously been at risk of E. Coli bacteria, which indicates human or animal faeces may be present in bathing water. The same applies to Intestinal Enterococci. “Many types of E. coli are not harmful but some, such as E. coli 0157, can directly cause illness,” according to the EA.
And nobody knows what caused the enormous jump in readings.
“Occasionally, usually during heavy rainfall, soil containing E. coli bacteria is washed into, rivers, streams, lakes, or groundwater leading to bathing waters,” added the EA site.
A brief look at previous year’s figures show a spike at roughly the same time of year.
The EA map shows that their samples are taken north of the pier, and an emergency storm overflow is indicated north of the town.
The map also shows two surface water overflows, situated south of there, in Lower Walmer. The picture below shows one of them. Situated between the RNLI station and the Downs Sailing Club. It shows a major breach, and begs the question about the state of the rest of the area’s water and sewage infrastructure.
Water currents tend to move north along the beach .
The EA has been asked for comment.
Holidaymakers and daytrippers have been enjoying a swim off the beach at Deal for at least a century, but there has been a recent growth in all-year outdoor swimming by local people, chiefly for health benefits.
Statistics are hard to come by, but anecdotal evidence of a rise in popularity of outdoor swimming has been linked to the Covid era when public pools were closed to stop the spread of the pandemic in 2021.
But there are signs it was increasing a long time before that. A Sport England Active Lives Survey found more than 4.1 million British people swam in lakes, lochs, rivers, and seas between 2017 and 2018, twice that of the previous year (266,500).
The news of the fall in water quality and cancellation of the annual Boxing Day Dip amid fears for participants’ health this year led to environmentalists launching a campaign to clean up the sea.
On January 3 Save Our Seas Deal and Walmer (SOSDAW) was launched at a Walmer Parish Hall public meeting attended by around 150 people, and all were urged to sign a petition for action to clean up the coast.
One of the points raised was the need for more testing, and the local council, which has limited funds, promised to carry out four more tests a year.
However, many felt that an even more comprehensive system of testing was necessary because of the tidal influences, seasonal variations, and various potential sources of pollution along the coast.
One of the main contributors to poor water quality is believed to be the release of untreated sewage into the sea from Southern Water’s outfalls. This can occur during periods of heavy rainfall when the sewage system becomes overwhelmed.
Inadequate pipework, allowing domestic sewage into water drainage systems, is another possible factor, which was raised at the meeting.
Another possible cause for seawater pollution cited was agricultural runoff, which carries pollutants such as fertilizers and pesticides into the waterways, further contaminating the coastal waters.
New home building was also raised at the Parish Hall as a possible cause, given an apparent lack of statutory requirements for builders to ensure appropriate water and sewage infrastructure is in place to support new developments.
Southern Water has committed to investing in infrastructure upgrades and reducing sewage outfalls, although nobody seems to know details of the improvements it is making in the Deal area and when they might be complete.
There are calls for stricter government regulations and enforcement to hold water companies accountable for pollution incidents and ensure they prioritize environmental protection, but few people are confident enough to predict when that will come about or the effect it will have.
But for now, a clarification about Deal’s water quality from the Environmental Agency would help no end.