Heacham beach is named as 'dirty'

One of West Norfolk’s most popular family beaches has also been labelled as one of the dirtiest in a recently published study.

It classifies Heacham as the fourth most contaminated in England.

And Hunstanton, which has just won a prestigious seaside award, and its neighbouring Old Hunstanton, were also in the bottom quarter of the list of more than 450 beaches in the study undertaken in 2019.

SaveOnEnergy, the energy switching site, had analysed the bacterial content of coastal waters around England, Scotland and Wales to see which were the water was cleanest and perfect for a paddle and where it was the most dirty and best avoided.

The results were based on bacterial contamination and on official annual government readings for faecal indicators such as E.Coli and Intestinal Enterococci.

Another of East Anglia beaches, Southwold’s South Denes beach was classified as worst in England but Heacham was not far behind, in fourth spot.

Rated by the study as cleanest in the eastern counties are those at Sheringham, Sea Palling, Cromer and West Runton.

Beaches in Cornwall headed the list of cleanest waters.

All of the data in the study was collected in 2019 and has just been published. There was no study in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic and equivalent data for 2021 has yet to be collected.

Ironically, the bad news about the state of the water at Heacham comes as the area is getting unparalleled publicity with the presence of BBC TV’s Springwatch at Wild Ken Hill for three weeks’ this month.