Powys river bathing site has exceeded safe bacterial limit
As the official bathing water season begins, campaigners are sounding the alarm, after it was found that Wales' first designated river bathing site – the Warren in Hay-on-Wye – exceeded safe bacterial limits on nearly one in three test days in 2024.
With swimmers already in the water, campaigners are demanding that Natural Resources Wales (NRW) urgently investigate the source of the contamination, including whether the faecal bacteria is of human or animal origin, before more people fall ill.
Oliver Bullough, an author and journalist who led the bathing campaign for Friends of the River Wye, said: 'Sadly, winning bathing designation was just the start of the process to clean up the Wye, and these figures prove beyond question that the river is in crisis.
'The Welsh Government now has a legal responsibility to make the Warren safe for swimmers, and it is time for NRW to trace this pollution to its source and prevent it.'
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Last year, the Warren became the first inland bathing water in Wales to gain official designation, requiring NRW to monitor water quality throughout the summer.
But results from testing by NRW, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, the University of York and the Friends of the River Wye reveal repeated safety breaches.
These include:
E. coli exceeded the limit (900 CFU/100ml) on 6 out of 28 days
Intestinal enterococci breached the threshold (330 CFU/100ml) on 7 out of 26 days
On 8 separate days out of 29, one or both bacteria exceeded safe levels
'These are not just statistics, they are a public health red flag,' said Mr Bullough.
'Just this month, one of our local schools warned parents that pupils had reported getting sick after swimming at the Warren, which showed once again that this problem is urgent.'
Amy Fairman, head of campaigns at River Action, added: 'These findings are deeply worrying, they show exactly why bathing water status matters; it gives us the data to sound the alarm when the public is at risk.
'Now NRW must act. The source of this pollution, whether sewage, farm runoff or both, must be traced and tackled. People have a right to swim in clean rivers and regulators must make that right real.'
With the 2025 season now underway, campaigners are calling on NRW to urgently explain what they are doing to trace the source of the pollution and restore the river to safety.
The Warren has been a swimming destination for over a century, marked as a 'bathing place' on Ordnance Survey maps as far back as 1888.
Official designation was meant to safeguard the public. That safeguard must now be enforced, with the public having a right to clean, safe water, and regulators have a duty to act.
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