Planning on wild swimming this summer? You could be neck deep in RAW SEWAGE

Fancy going wild swimming this summer? The ongoing water quality crisis poses a great risk to those wishing to enjoy the rivers in our county.

Director of campaigns at Surfers Against Sewage Dani Jordan said that she is becoming increasingly worried about the situation as she herself wild swims with her children.

At a recent protest against Thames Water, where activist groups Surfers Against Sewage and River Action paddled onto the Thames outside the company's HQ, Mrs Jordan said that something needs to be done about the issue and fast.

"It's really difficult because we cannot designate everywhere as a bathing spot," she said. "Where I swim regularly will never be a designated bathing spot because it doesn't have all the things that a bathing area needs. Parking, toilets, changing rooms etc.

"What we do need is better data around sewage. We do now have sewage pollution data, which is brilliant but it doesn't really tell us very much.

Mrs Jordan said that the group knows that a combined sewage overflow has gone off, but that to the general public the current data is very difficult to decipher.

"Thames Water is my local water company down in Curtsey, but we don't know how much that is affecting each piece of river and for how long," she continued.

Mrs Jordan explained that Surfers Against Sewage are advocating for a new nationwide model which companies must sign up to along with the environmental agency.

This plan would give the public a really clear picture of what waterways are safe to swim in. The new model would also give a timeframe for how long the water presents as a risk and how much of the waterway is contaminated.

This comes as stretches of river across England will be designated as swimming spots as part of Government plans to establish dozens of new bathing water sites.

A total of 27 new bathing sites would be designated under the plans, many of which are in rivers and lakes, significantly boosting the number of such official inland swimming areas.

One such location is Wallingford Beach, River Thames, Berkshire.

In addition, a lack of water quality sampling and outdated forecast methods leave people vulnerable to sudden increases in chemicals or bacteria in the water.

Researchers have said that with coastal and wild swimming becoming more popular, local authorities urgently need to make use of improved forecasting techniques to identify the dangers from bugs such as E. coli or intestinal enterococci, which can be lethal.