Water quality rated poor for second year running

The Environment Agency is warning swimmers in Bognor Regis to avoid Aldwick for the second year running.

The bathing area, which was last rated ‘good’ in 2021, has once again been deemed a nogozoneforswimmersinsussex, after receiving a ‘poor’ classification in 2022.

Taking water samples from the area throughout 2023, Environment Agency experts found that, although the water quality has improved since the year before, it continues to fall below the standards expected for a useable bathing area. Samples takenfrombetweenseptember andoctoberin2023foundmore than 1,000 colonies of Intestinal Enterococci,andmorethan500 colonies of Escherichia Coli per 100 ml of sea water.

Results in 2022 were considerably worse, with circa 1,500 colonies of Escherichia Coli and more than 2,000 colonies of Intestinal Enterococci discovered per 100 ml of seawater in samples taken from the same period. But 2023’s improved rates are not enough to see Aldwick’s rating go up to ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, and swimmers are still being urged away from the area.

Escherichia Coli can cause severe diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and meningitis, while Intestinal Enterococci is found in the intestinal tracts of animals and has been used to indicate the contamination of bodies of water by waste.

Other bathing sites in and around Bognor Regis also suffered. The bathing water profile for Pagham deteriorated from ‘excellent’ in 2022, to merely 'good’ in 2023 and the Bognor Regis East site has failed to regainthe‘excellent’classification it lost in 2021.

There is now only one ‘excellent’ bathing area in and around Bognor Regis: Middleton-on-sea, which has received top marks from the Environmental Agency since 2019. This represents a marked decline from 2021, when three Bognor Regis-area bathing waters were designated ‘excellent’: Middleton-on-sea, Bognor Regis

East, and Pagham. In 2022, the decline of Aldwick’s bathing water classification caused controversy. Then leader of Arun District Council Shaun Gunner urged Southern Water to “step up” and make urgent changes, linking the downturn with a number of high-profile wastewater releases in the area. The water company said in response itwasinvestigatingthesourceof the drop in quality.