Bathing move in bid to clean up river

CAMPAIGNERS ARE fighting to get a popular stretch of the River Wharfe recognised as a bathing spot so they can improve water quality.

If the government designates the Wharfe at Ilkley as suitable for swimming, it would mean the Environment Agency having to regularly test the water for harmful bacteria such as E.coli.

Currently, there are no rivers in the UK with the status.

The river attracts large crowds of swimmers but the Ilkley Clean River Group claims it suffers from pollution from an upstream Yorkshire Water treatment facility.

The group says bacteria levels rise when rainfall overwhelms its storm tanks, causing untreated effluent to enter the river.

The discharges are legal to prevent leakages into people’s homes and are often permitted by the Environment Agency.

Bradford Council has backed the group’s application to the Department

for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for official bathing designation for a 300-metre (328-yard) stretch from Ilkley Old Bridge to Beanlands Island.

The group’s grassroots activism has uncovered “regular and routine” sewage dumping, with 136 instances between April and December 2019.

Campaigner Professor Rebecca Malby believes the group have uncovered a “national scandal” and exposed the poor maintenance of outdated sewage systems. She said: “We accept it will happen in exceptional weather conditions, but not day to day. It’s happening everywhere. It’s not just in Ilkley. The system isn’t fit for purpose.”

Yorkshire Water backed the application and if granted would need to make changes, focussing on the capacity of the combined sewer network which has been designed to deal with both foul and surface water.