Church Beach in Legal Challenge

Last year Church Beach on Lyme Regis was successfully re-designated as a bathing beach after a concerted effort by RLA and others.  This case study is now being used by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) as part of a legal challenge to changes to Government regulations on the designation of bathing beaches.

The changes mean a beach such as Church Beach applying for designation in future would not pass the water quality test and would be barred from applying. Designation leads to regular monitoring, an action plan to clean up the beach and better information for the public.

 SAS says the changes to the regulations mean: “abandoning (indeed reversing) that approach such that (in effect) clean-up must take place before designation. That will make the clean up much less likely to happen and even discourages it.”

The Government is introducing a rule that any beach or water body with poor water quality would be barred from any application for bathing water status because it wouldn’t be “feasible” to improve it.

Church Beach was one of fourteen supported by SAS in 2024 to achieve bathing water status. Since it was re-designated there has been signage about pollution risks and an action plan drawn up on how water quality will be improved. South West Water’s Turning the Tide programme will reduce sewage discharges as part of delivering the necessary improvements.

Vicki Elcoate, River Lim Action coordinator, said: “we provided a witness statement to support this action in the High Court because there’s a real public health risk in the Government’s proposed changes. People will swim anyway and stopping popular beaches from being designated means no monitoring, information or clean up.

“When we applied for designation we anticipated the water quality would be classified as ‘poor’ and therefore, the goal was to secure investment and commitment to clean up the sources of pollution (mainly human sewage). That’s already led to concerted efforts and visible results”.