Sewage pollution warning on popular Pembrokeshire beach

Pembrokeshire County Council have issued a public health warning after suspected sewage was discovered at Wiseman’s Bridge beach.

The council is warning people that the incident may affect bathing water quality with an increased risk of infection for those who do choose to swim.

Further investigations are taking place, however the beach remains open.

This latest incident comes days after untreated sewage flowed into the sea causing the closure of two beaches in Porthcawl, at Rest Bay and Sandy Bay.

Welsh Water blamed that incident on heavy rain. In a statement the water company said: “Despite the widespread rain, only two of our combined storm overflows (CSOs) operated at designated bathing waters. This is how they are designed to operate when the wastewater network in an area reaches capacity due to the volume of rainwater in it. The spills were compliant with our permit to operate them and as we always do with these CSOs we sent notifications to Surfers Against Sewage so that they were aware and could notify their members.

“We appreciate that people do have concerns when CSOs operate at bathing waters but they are essential to prevent sewage water from backing up into people’s properties during heavy rain and we are also transparent with interested parties when they do operate.”

Welsh Government say they have committed £40m to improve the situation over the next three years.

(Lead image: Trevor Rickard / Geograph / Creative Commons 2.0)