THE monitoring of bathing water is about to ramp up in the Vale.

A partnership project between Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and the Vale of Glamorgan Council aims to provide real-time information to bathers on predicted water quality at beaches in Barry.

A water sampling programme is currently running at Whitmore Bay and Jackson’s Bay this summer.

It comes as Surfers against Sewage held a ‘paddle-out protest’ against Welsh Water on Saturday, May 20, at Penarth Pier where Welsh Rivers Union’s Kim Waters accused the company of poisoning the country’s rivers.

Welsh Water hit back by saying Wales is blessed with a quarter of the UK’s Blue Flag beaches, despite only having 15 per cent of its coastline.

The new project aims to use sampling data, along with meteorological data, such as rainfall, UV radiance and river level data to develop statistical models to better understand what is affecting the water quality at Whitmore Bay and Jackson’s Bay.

It comes as Jackson’s Bay’s water quality is currently classed as ‘Sufficient’, but is at risk of dropping to ‘Poor’, while Whitmore Bay’s water quality is currently classed as ‘Good’, but prior to 2020 it was regularly ‘Excellent’.

Barry And District News: Jackson's Bay water quality, under threatJackson's Bay water quality, under threat (Image: Google Maps)

Cllr Mark Wilson, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, said he hoped the project would improve public health.  

“We are proud of our beaches in Vale and recognise the importance of public health to our communities. We hope that this project, with the ability to predict water quality, will help us in our commitment to improving public health.”

Fiona Hourahine, Operations Manager for NRW, said the work was a huge part of what NRW do.

“We’ve been working with Vale of Glamorgan Council for years to monitor the bathing water quality around Barry,” said Ms Hourahine.

“Introducing pollution risk forecasting in Barry will inform beach management decisions and provide timely water quality advice to the public to enable them to make an informed decision whether to swim.

“It will also offer resilience to the overall bathing water classifications through discounting of a sample in certain conditions when a warning of predicted poor water quality is given to people, under strict guidelines set in the legislation.”