Water industry 'terrorising athletes' as triathlon swimming leg at Bexhill beach cancelled over sewage fears

Organiser James Mitchell said he was forced to call off the sea swim leg of the 1066 Triathlon in Bexhill after event advisers warned the water had unsafe levels of pollution. The Environment Agency issued pollution risk warnings on both Saturday (31 August) and Sunday (1 September), advising against bathing in the seaside town.

Mr Mitchell told the BBC the cancellation was "really, really disappointing" and it was "horrible for all the people who entered the event” as “they've spent months of training for this." Mr Mitchell added that sewage spills risked stunting the growth of the event which boosted tourism and the local economy.

On its website, Southern Water warned of a two hour and 12 minute spill at Bexhill in the early hours of Sunday morning. It told the BBC there were no storm overflow releases at Bexhill in the days leading up to 31 August.

Fierce sewage campaigner Feargal Sharkey posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Not content with decimating almost every river in the country, poisoning a whole town, forcing a situation where small business lose money, now the water industry is terrorising athletes who want to do nothing more than go for a swim.”

The water firm said: "Very heavy rainfall in the Bexhill area caused a storm overflow release on the 1 September, preventing wastewater backing up and entering people’s homes and businesses. We have a £1.5bn plan to slash the number of releases using nature-based and engineering solutions over the next ten years”. The water firm added that tackling storm overflows was its "top priority".