Lane closed for 10 days

Ox Lane in Tenterden will be closed for the next 10 days by the Swain Road junction for sewer works. Access to the remainder of Ox Lane is available from either direction up to where the road is closed, but there will be no through access. The alternative route is via Swain Road, A28 Ashford Road and Ox Lane. One of Shepway’s beaches has scraped through as having clean enough water for bathers to swim in.

But even if it’s a little chilly for swimming this time of the year, there’s one beach you might want to avoid dipping your toes in

Margate’s Walpole Bay is the only beach in Kent to fail to meet the minimum water quality test by the Environment Agency (EA), and was rated poor in the whole south east and is among the six dirtiest beaches in England.

But Littlestone beach on Romney Marsh only fared slightly better after being rated “sufficient” – the second lowest rating placing it among the worst 7% (28) of bathing beaches in the country.

Other beaches in Shepway which are monitored by the EA performed significantly better.

Sunny Sands in Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe beaches were all rated excellent in the results published by the government this week.

Meanwhile o t her b a t hing beaches on the Marsh, Dymchurch and St Mary’s Bay, were said to be good.

Littlestone has been ranked as only being ‘sufficient’ for the past four years.

It does not mean people are not advised to swim off Littlestone unlike at Walpole Bay, where bathers have been told the water quality there is affected by a range of pollution sources.

These include dog and bird mess, litter, bacteria from seaweed, rainwater overflow from the wastewater network following heavy showers, and rainwater run-off from possible misconnections in surrounding roads, private drains and sewers.

Results announced by Defra show out of Kent’s 29 bathing waters, 18 are rated excellent, eight good, two sufficient and one poor.

The results were taken from weekly assessments of water quality between May and September this year.

Measurement of bathing water quality standards are now twice as strict as before, following the revised European Bathing Water Directive implemented in 2015.

Environment secretary Andrea Leadsom said: “England’s bathing waters are enjoyed by millions of people every year, which is why I am delighted the water quality at our beaches and lakes is better than at any time since before the Industrial Revolution.”