Experts closing in on source of Cullercoats water contamination

Northumbrian Water, North Tyneside Council and the Environment Agency are working together to find and fix the issue at Cullercoats beach and improve the area’s bathing water quality.

Work done by the organisations in recent years has shown that contamination is likely coming from several different sources – with recent work by Northumbrian Water suggesting that polluted water may be travelling through the ground and onto the beach and sea through the cliffs and caves.

Potential contributing factors include damaged pipework, likely to have been caused by previously unknown land drainage systems and misconnected private drains feeding into a culvert around the John Street and Beverley Terrace areas.

The water firm has been fixing some wrongly connected waste connections, stopping waste flows getting into old land drainage systems.

Further work is planned in the area by North Tyneside Council and Northumbrian Water in the coming months, as well as regular water quality monitoring and testing by the Environment Agency.

Richard Warneford, wastewater director at Northumbrian Water, said: “Recent work has found some historic and unrecorded land drains in the areas around John Street and Beverley Terrace.

“We think there’s a strong possibility that these old systems have caused damage to sewers and allowed water from misconnections and damaged pipes to pass through ground in the area and into the cave and cliff systems and then down to the beach, causing poor bathing water quality.

“We’ve done a lot of excavation work in those streets and where we’ve found misconnected properties, we’ve immediately fixed any issues and correctly connected homes to our sewage networks, so that the waste can be taken away safely and treated properly.

"We are hopeful that these actions will make a positive difference to the bathing water at Cullercoats.”

Sam Dand, director of environment at North Tyneside Council, added: "Everyone wants to see excellent bathing water quality at Cullercoats, and these investigations are helping to build a much clearer picture of the causes.

"It’s encouraging that practical improvements have already been made.”

Rachael Caldwell, area environment manager for the Environment Agency said: “A site’s bathing water quality is impacted by a whole range of factors and monitoring will continue throughout the bathing season.”