Anglian Water is set to invest £12 million into the East of England’s coastline over the next five years as part of its ongoing commitment to help improve the cleanliness of the local bathing waters.

The investment will help pinpoint and tackle diffuse pollution from a range of sources, which is, cumulatively, the main cause of poor bathing water quality in the East of England, although specific issues vary for each bathing water.

Sources of diffuse pollution include:

• Rainwater run-off from roads, roofs, pavements and farmland that washes pollutants such as chemicals, animal mess and litter into the sea
• Misconnected house drains, which have a massive combined impact by sending foul waste out to rivers and the sea as if it were rainwater
• Populations of roosting birds that cause large quantities of droppings to enter the bathing water

The investment will also fund a number of specific infrastructure schemes including a number of new storm water tanks in Southend and additional treatment at Cleethorpes, and maintaining and improving the water company’s state-of-the-art monitoring and alert system, BeachAware, which allows it to monitor assets 24/7 and cover all 48 bathing waters, and extending its BeachCare programme to more areas.

 To trace the sources of diffuse pollution Anglian Water will be using state-of-the-art technology to identify sources of pollution and how they are entering coastal waters. This will accompany more traditional investigative techniques such as CCTV surveys, dye tracing, sampling, and on foot surveys of the coastal catchment.

To build on existing local partnerships and accelerate projects to tackle diffuse pollution, Anglian Water has recruited a new Coastal Water Protection team covering the length of its coastline.

Lucinda Gilfoyle, Anglian Water’s Coastal and Catchment Strategy Manager, said:

“Anglian Water has been committed to improving bathing waters along the East of England coastline for decades and we’ve invested hundreds of millions of pounds in our infrastructure to take care of any big issues. What remain are these hard-to-reach sources of pollution, like misconnected drains, urban and agricultural run-off, and some bird populations that have a large, cumulative impact on our bathing waters.”

“Diffuse pollution is the major factor affecting bathing water quality in the East of England, but the specific issues vary for each bathing water and that’s why we are committing to this substantial investment on pinpointing the issues. To do this we need to work together with local councils, the Environment Agency, businesses and customers as well as many other local contacts to make sure the bathing waters and beaches remain open and a main attraction for our tourist towns.”