Our aim is to make it safer for people to swim and play in the river, with the specific objective that by 2030 the bathing water quality at Sheep’s Green should at least be achieving “Satisfactory” status and ideally “Good” (Currently it is “Poor”)
In 2023 we successfully applied for bathing water designation for the Cam at Sheep’s Green. Because the water quality was then rated as “poor” (as we knew it would be) this has imposed an obligation on Anglian Water to clean up. Their investigations are in progress. We are pleased that they’ve put £20-30M in the budget for improvements to the upstream sewage infrastructure, but disapointed that the main improvements won’t happen until 2029.
Our main activities in this area now are
Helping identify the source of sewage pollution. We know that most of it is coming from Haslingfield Sewage works, but there are also very likely to be other sources. Our local expertise and monitoring work can be very helpful to the Environment Agency and the Anglian Water bathing water team. For example, we’ve identified that there are potential misconnections in Newnham, and intermittent pollution incidents on Vicars Brook, both just upstream of Sheeps Green
- We do some monitoring ourselves (we have our own lab for E.coli testing)
- We meet with the EA and AW around once or twice a year to share knowledge
- We’ve been helping and training other local groups to monitor water quality in their own areas of the river.
We’re (politely and constructively) keeping up the public pressure on Anglian Water to implement the improvements to their infrastructure as soon as possible (although we know it is going to take several years before we see an improvement) We do this by
- Articles in the local press, and quite frequently appearing on ITV east and BBC Cambridge to talk about the problem
- We organised a big “punt and paddleout” protest on The Backs in May 2025, calling for an end to sewage pollution. https://camvalleyforum.uk/punt-and-paddleout-17-may-2025/
- We are encouraging local people to report any sewage overflows from pumping stations, or other apparent incidents to the Environment Agency on 0800 80 7060 immediately (the same day ideally) so the EA enforcement people know about it, can log it, and can take action.
You can see more detail on aspects of the clean bathing water project using the links below
Our campaign to achieve Bathing Water Designation, 2022-24, and what Designation now implies.
Anglian Water’s bathing water quality monitoring 2022-23 (very comprehensive, done for us by Anglian Water)
Cam Valley Forum bathing water quality monitoring 2021-22 (various sites, from Maldon to Clayhythe)