Two more Vale beaches become designated bathing waters
Watch House Bay, known locally as Watchtower Bay, and Ogmore Beach have both been classified as designated bathing waters following work by the Vale of Glamorgan Council and St Brides Community Council.
Shared Regulatory Services (SRS), which carries out work in relation to water, air and land quality for Cardiff, Bridgend and the Vale local authority areas, applied to Welsh Government for the locations to be given that status.
Between May and September last year, the SRS Environment Team collaborated with a local Swimming Group – the Watchtower Waders – to gather the necessary evidence needed for Watch House Bay’s application.
This included documenting the number of people using the beach during the bathing water season (May to October) to prove the popularity of the beach to Welsh Government.
Following the application, earlier this year Welsh Government ran an online consultation asking visitors to the beach, which is located between Barry Old Harbour and The Knap, what they thought about the possibility of it becoming a designated bathing beach.
As a result of the successful application, Watch House Bay will now be added to the list of designated bathing waters in the Vale alongside Whitmore Bay, Jackson’s Bay, The Cold Knap, Penarth, Dunraven Bay and Col Huw Beach in Llantwit Major.
A successful application was also made by St Brides Community Council to designate Ogmore-by-Sea beach as a designated bathing area as well.
These beaches will now be included in Natural Resources Wales’ (NRW) monitoring programme and the water will be routinely tested each year for 20 weeks from mid-May.
It will then be assigned a classification for water quality, from excellent to poor.
Cllr Ruba Sivagnanam, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, Equalities and Regulatory Services, said: “We are proud of our beaches in the Vale and want as many people as possible to enjoy them.
“We hope that with the addition of Watch House Bay and Ogmore-by-Sea to our current list of designated bathing waters, it will attract even more visitors and to our seashores, which in turn will provide them with clean waters to swim for their health and wellbeing.
“As we head towards summer, we hope that the newly designated bathing waters will bring more people to the Vale’s coastline to enjoy our spectacular beaches, as well as benefitting many local businesses across the county.”