Summerleaze is a wide sandy beach within easy walking distance of Bude town centre. Flanked by the river, backed by dunes, and sheltered by an impressive breakwater, Summerleaze is popular with families and surfers. A seawater bathing pool offers safe swimming in all conditions.
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.
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.
To help reduce the risk of environmental impact from our sewerage network, and to contribute towards improving bathing water quality at Summerleaze Beach, we have earmarked circa £3,740,000 of investment up to March 2025*.
In September 2022, we completed improvements to the sewerage network here. These included:
The 2025-2030 investment programme is currently being scoped out. If you’re a community group or part of a local network and would like to have your say see ‘Your Beach, Your Say, Our Investment’.
*Amounts earmarked for investment may change dependent on the final design of the optimal solution and costings provided by our supply chain.
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.
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Bude Car Park storm overflow, Bude | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 |
Castle pumping station overflow, Bude | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Marhamchurch pumping station overflow, Bude | 1 | 0 | 90 | 124 |
Nanny Moores Bridge storm overflow, Bude | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Stratton pumping station overflow, Bude | 2 | 0 | 26 | 40 |
The Strand storm overflow, Bude | 7 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
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.