Salcombe South Sands
An unspoilt sandy cove at the mouth of the Salcombe - Kingsbridge estuary. There is some parking close to the beach or you can take the passenger ferry from Whitestrand Quay in Salcombe. You can find facilities for canoeing, sailing, windsurfing and diving.
Overflow locations
The map below shows the locations of the storm overflows that have the potential to impact water quality at this bathing water.
The map shows whether or not a storm overflow is currently active, the time and duration of the last spill at that location, and our investment commitments that are specific to that overflow.
Salcombe South Sands storm overflow map
Water quality sample results
The graphs below show the significant reduction in harmful bacteria in the Environment Agency’s (EA) water samples since the 1990s. E. coli and Intestinal Enterococci exist in all open water - they are found in human and animal poo, and get into the water via sewage spills, road drainage, agricultural livestock, or wildlife and birds. The EA uses the levels of these bacteria to decide whether to award this beach bathing water status.
Investment programme up to 2025
Marlborough sewage treatment works is being upgraded and will improve the resilience and performance of the treatment process with work to be completed by March 2025. In addition, two lateral pipes in the foreshore at Salcombe have been relayed, to be connected in Spring 2025, with total investment of around £4,100,000.
We have also completed the modelling review to investigate the performance of Shute Park storm overflow.
5 year overflow spill information
The data shown in the table below is the reported annual total spill number for each overflow which has been identified by the EA for this bathing water.
The assignment of an overflow to the bathing water does not always mean an impact will occur, it can be dependent on a number of factors such as tidal state and weather conditions. Sometimes it has been allocated just for investigation purposes and has no impact at all.
All data collected goes through vigorous quality assurance processes before being included in the counts. Sometimes debris can trigger false spills to be recorded, resulting in potentially higher than actual spill numbers.
Number of spills
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malborough sewage treatment works storm overflow, Salcombe | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Shute Park storm overflow, Malborough | 33 | 43 | 34 | 49 | 17 |
| South Sands pumping station overflow, Salcombe | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
The beach profiles were created in line with information provided by our partners, Environment Agency, RNLI, Keep Britain Tidy, MCS - Beach Guide and British Beaches.