Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coast sewage discharges spark pollution alerts

Pollution alerts are in place for several beaches along the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coast after untreated sewage was discharged into the sea.

The Surfers Against Sewage charity said it put the alerts in place after several areas were affected since the weekend, including Bridlington North, Hornsea and Cleethorpes.

Alerts are also in place for Filey, Scarborough North Bay and Whitby.

It follows heavy rainfall after extremely dry weather.

Warnings from the Safer Seas and Rivers Service app, run by Surfers Against Sewage, are based on water firms' official data.

According to the alerts for each of the affected coastal sites in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, "storm sewage has been discharged from a sewer overflow in this location within the past 48 hours".

Although not illegal, academics and environmental groups say releasing sewage poses a danger to human health.

Water companies release sewage when there is too much demand on their treatment works during rainy periods.

Longer term Environment Agency (EA) bathing water quality warnings are also in place at Bridlington South and Scarborough South Bay based on EA data.

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: "Some of our storm overflows on the east coast operated recently following prolonged periods of rain or following heavy rainfall from thunderstorms.

"The discharges are permitted when our network is receiving high flows of wastewater and the network operated as designed in order to protect homes, businesses and the streets from flooding."

Anglian Water said: "Storm overflows were originally designed to protect homes and businesses from flooding during heavy rainfall, like we saw on Sunday night into Monday morning.

"There was a short release in the Grimsby area when the system would have been processing a huge volume of water owed to the heavy rain."

The spokesperson added: "We recognise that storm overflows are no longer the right solution when sewers become overloaded with rainwater - we've been tackling the overflows which pose as an environmental risk and we're working through the rest."

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