Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to St John Harris of Democratic Services and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on Wednesday, 18 March, three working days before the day of the meeting. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item.
If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chair who will instruct anyone who may be taking a recording to cease while you speak.
Minutes:
There were five public questions submitted to the committee. An additional three public questions submitted by Whitby Community Network were dealt with outside the meeting since a representative could not be present to ask them. Questions 1 and 2 were considered at Minute 201 – Environment Agency and questions 3 to 5 were considered at Minute 202 – Yorkshire Water.
1. The aim of Scarborough Sea Pool CIC is to have a
new tidal sea pool in Scarborough, the preferred location has been identified
as Children’s Corner, slightly to the south of the main south bay beach.
Having read the papers for this meeting, we think
The current monitoring period during 15th May to
30th Sept and only 20 times during this period doesn’t meet the year round
nature of surfing and sea swimming in Scarborough, we want this acknowledged
and year round testing done across all the bays and not limited to a small
number of testing locations, we also want to be involved in the future
testing.
Yorkshire Water say they consult with Surfers
Against Sewage and Sons of Neptune; we want to make YW aware of many other
active sea swimming groups in Scarborough that should also be involved and
actively consulted in the future Bathing Water Partnership.
We can be contacted via our email scarboroughseapool@gmail.com and our website https://e-voice.org.uk/scarboroughseapool/ (Karen Chiverall, Scarborough Sea Pool CIC)
Reply
Defra has recently consulted on proposed reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 including extending the dates of the monitored bathing season. Should Defra permit this and the funding be made available, then the EA would gladly undertake more testing over a longer period.
In reply, Ms Chiverall sought further information about the Defra consultation: had the consultation closed? Was there an opportunity for Scarborough Sea Pool CIC to participate? The Chair advised that the Area Committee had responded to the consultation which took place in November – December 2024 seeking an extension of the monitored bathing season.
2. In the recent water quality review a list of
reasons for poor water quality at South Bay, Scarborough were given: discharge
of sewage via water company overflows, animal waste, misconnected drains,
agricultural runoff and urban runoff. Whilst this presents a diffuse picture of
culprits, what is the accurate picture? What is causing the majority of
negative impact to our water? We ask you
to quantify, provide percentages for each of these data points to explain the
picture more accurately. (Elisabeth Marriott)
Reply
The EA uses microbial source tracking of potential
sources of pollution and total bacterial community profiling to test samples
for counts of the bacteria intestinal enterococci (IE) and Escherichia coli (E.
coli), the two bacteria used to classify bathing waters under the Bathing Water
Regulations 2013. These techniques do not allow to build a precise picture of
contributors by percentage to poor bathing water quality, rather give strong or
weak indicators.
In response, Ms Marriott sought further
clarification as to how the EA’s findings marry with those of Professor Grocke.
The meeting was advised that seabirds were a
consistent contributor to the bacteria measured as part of the Bathing Water
Regulations requirements at both Scarborough South and North bathing waters –
the former site having a magnitude greater concentration of markers than the
latter, but they were present in numbers at both. The presence of the markers
was established through the use of Microbial Source Technique (MST) analysis of
the bacteria present in the water samples collected at the sampling points at
Scarborough North and Scarborough South and further confirmed through use of
bacterial community profiling analysis. Seaweed samples were not obtained from
the bathing water sites as seaweed does not grow at these locations, so this
could not be compared with Professor Grocke’s investigation findings. Seabird
markers were also found in water samples taken in Scalby Beck but analysis of
the bacteria in these samples showed that human and ruminant markers were in
much greater concentrations here, compared with both seabirds and the water
taken at the bathing water sites. The dominance of human and ruminant markers
found using the EA’s investigative techniques would be supportive of the
findings of Professor Grocke’s work in Scalby Beck.
3. We are one of many active sea swimming groups in
Scarborough and we organise regular swims, multiple times a week. We get
alerts about CSO’s and spillages via the SSRS (Safer Seas and Rivers)
app. We are very concerned about all CSO’s, but especially at times when
the weather is dry, we have been told that sometimes the monitoring equipment
can cause errors if there is dust, dirt or spiders’ webs on the sensors.
How accurate is the information about CSO’s and how can Yorkshire Water improve
the sensors or fix faults with them, or is the information about dust, dirt and
spiders’ webs just a ‘web of deceit’?
We would also happily assist with more frequent
water quality testing.
(Cathy Foreman, Hub Sea
Swimmers)
Reply
YW uses EDM (Event
Duration Monitoring) sensors in storm overflows which operate in a hostile
environment buried underground and can become contaminated. This can lead to
indications of an instantaneous discharge on the real time overflow map which
are generally fake. YW is working to reduce these anomalies and make the
equipment more reliable. YW was assessed by the EA on the availability and
accuracy of these monitors so it was in YW’s interests to reduce anomalies in
the data.
4. Will Yorkshire Water provide or fund water
quality testing kits to local sea swimming/surfing groups to enable the
collection of real time data? In this way, the public can get involved thereby
building trust in YW and EA. (Alicia Black)
Reply
YW has much confidence in the science around
bathing water testing and the work undertaken by the EA and Professor Grocke,
and further acknowledges the value of real time information on bathing water
quality. Even though the technology is not quite there to enable this, YW would
be very interested in investigating and implementing a solution involving the
public through the Bathing Water Partnership. Reference was also made to a two
year plan to introduce real time testing in Scalby Beck.
5. Whilst bonus payments were banned in 2025, these
payments are still being made in disguised ways, for example through parent
companies, or as retention payments. These are still bonuses. How can the
public trust YW when massive amounts of money are paid out of the company
rather than used to lower bills and clean our water? (Elisabeth Marriott on
behalf of Tim Blacklock)
Reply
The payments referred to were not performance
related payments, but payments agreed by shareholders for the Chief Executive.
It would not be right for customers to meet these additional costs through
their bills, and YW was working hard to ensure there is transparency around
these decisions.