Protesters criticise beach's water pollution

Crowds gathered on a beach to protest against continued pollution from sewage overflows.

South Shields Surf CIC said it has been campaigning for "decades and decades" to clean up the water at Littlehaven Beach, which was rated poor by the Environment Agency last year.

Nick Jones, who runs the surf school, said he organised the demonstration to make sure water companies are held to account and to "push for meaningful change".

A spokesperson for Northumbrian Water said it would carry out a "detailed investigation" at the beach in order to reduce the number of spills.

Storm overflows are used when heavy rain or rising groundwater overwhelms the sewer network. This is to prevent sewage backing up into homes.

Jones said the use of storm overflows is tarnishing the beach's reputation.

"The recent publicity this beach has got over being a no-go beach and a brown flag beach hides the detail and hides the culpability of Northumbrian Water," he said.

"Because 55% of the time, this beach returns a quarter quality test of good or excellent, it returns a poor when the sewage overflows are discharging untreated sewage and when that untreated sewage is being pumped it's the responsibility of Northumbrian Water."

A spokesperson said the beach was a newly designated bathing water in 2024 and "much like new bathing waters nationally" was rated poor for its first year, as it "can take time to bring a new bathing water up to standard".

They said £1.7bn will be invested into "environmental improvements" across the North East by 2030 "to reduce the number of spills from storm overflows and help to improve our coasts and rivers".

For Littlehaven in particular, Northumbrian Water said it will be using "innovative techniques" such as drones and rapid testing devices to collect data, to help make improvements "as quickly as possible".

Jones said protesters were against "water pollution for profit by water companies".

"We want to drive it up into the agenda so we can push for meaningful change," he said.

"We're understandably and justifiably cross about this situation, angry and disheartened that we're still campaigning - it's been decades and decades of campaigning.

"The companies need to be held to account."

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