Back in 2010, this used to be a nice place to relax (Picture: Alamy)
St Mary’s Bay is a long expanse of sand perfect for a sunny day, pitching a parasol while the kids build sandcastles, or paddling in the shallow shoreline.
The spot on the Kent coast is popular with swimmers, dog walkers, and holidaymakers.
Or at least – it used to be.
These days, there’s a major concern putting people off putting down their towels.
It is that people don’t really fancy swimming in a pool of poo.
For over 15 months, people have been warned not to swim at the beach just 25 minutes down the road from ever-popular Camber Sands, with warning notices put up there as well as at nearby Littlestone on the Romney Marsh.
High levels of the intestinal enterococci bacterium indicate there is sewage and human faeces in the water, which can cause sickness and diarrhoea.
A sign at the beach warning of ‘poor water quality’ (Picture: Kent Online/SWNS)
The Environment Agency (EA) has now admitted it cannot say when it will be able to lift the advisories, with swimmers told the sea will remain polluted for the forseeable future.
Things have got so bad that a local business renting watersports equipment in the area, which which was once doing well, has not even been able to open this year.
‘We are making no money and the do-not-swim warning has thrown us into turmoil,’ Gemma Bellamy, who co-owns water sports school and shop The Foiling Collective, said.
She attended a packed meeting about the problem on Wednesday, where local water company Southern Water insisted the problem was not their fault, though the council leader expressed some doubt about this.
Around 100 angry residents and traders revealed the impact of the ongoing situation at the meeting at New Romney’s Assembly Rooms.
Gemma said she was having to look at moving the business on Littlestone beach elsewhere: ‘We were expected to start the season in April and we were unable to open.
‘Morally we have taken the decision not to open the school. We also would not be covered by the insurance company.
‘We are making no money and the do-not-swim warning has thrown us into turmoil.’
Angry locals gathered for a meeting last week about the issue (Picture: Kent Online/SWNS)
The EA monitors water quality between May and September by taking samples at designated bathing sites.
Littlestone and St Mary’s Bay are the only beaches in Kent where people are advised not to swim in the sea because the water quality is rated ‘poor’.
But the problem is not unique to this beach, or indeed many of the UK’s rivers too.
The EA says there is ‘no single cause’ at the Kent beaches, and it has identified a number of sources, including dog and bird faeces and people misconnecting toilets and showers.
It says it is also investigating sewers, leaking cesspits and septic tanks.
But the leader of Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC), Jim Martin, says Southern Water outfall releases in Hythe must be a factor.
In Wednesday’s meeting, he stated: ‘I find it difficult to understand why those litres are not affecting the bathing quality water in the bay next door.
‘I’m not a scientist, but this must be having an impact.’
The bathing water in Dymchurch beach has also been downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘satisfactory’.
Southern Water’s open water improvement lead, Tom Gallagher, said: ‘The reasons behind the sample results are complex, and none of the samples collected by the Environment Agency in 2023 were likely to have been affected by our overflows.
‘However, we know we have a key role to play and St Mary’s Bay, Littlestone, Dymchurch and Folkestone are key locations in our improvement plans.
‘We’re doing a wide range of different work in the area to help improve water quality, including relining sewers and resolving and investigating illegal misconnections and connecting private cess pits to our network.’
In the meantime, swimmers will still be avoiding the area.
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