Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the average time was between a pollution discharge notification and a public bathing water quality warning being issued during the 2024 season.

The Environment Agency (EA) does not record the time between notifying a Local Authority of a pollution incident that may affect a bathing water and how long it then takes the Local Authority, who have the responsibility for notifications being put up at bathing waters, to relay this to bathers.

Discharges from water company assets are reported directly through their regional storm overflow maps as well as being collated and displayed in near real time via the National Storm Overflow Hub. The EA does not have records of what information Local Authorities choose to provide to bathers in response to this discharge information.

The EA provides information to bathers, via the Swimfo website, of any pollution incidents that may affect a bathing water. Operational procedures specify that duty officers receiving information on pollution incidents consider displaying these via Swimfo if they have the potential to affect a bathing water as part of the incident recording. When this is done Swimfo will display these warnings within a couple of minutes.