{"id":304102,"date":"2026-02-27T01:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304102\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:52:09","slug":"beach-where-wellington-mayor-andrew-little-took-dip-now-rated-unsuitable-for-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304102\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach where Wellington mayor Andrew Little took dip now rated ‘unsuitable’ for swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wellington’s south coast beaches have been rated as unsuitable for swimming just two days after the city’s mayor went for a swim in Lyall Bay to show it was safe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The area had been off limits to beach goers since 4 February after the Moa Point sewage plant completely failed<\/a>, sending tens of millions of raw sewage into Cook Strait each day since.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, it was announced the beaches could reopen, with Wellington mayor Andrew Little taking a dip in front of media.<\/p>\n

\"Wellington<\/p>\n

\nWellington mayor Andrew Little took a dip at Lyall Bay on Wednesday.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

The Land Air Water Aotearoa [LAWA] website has listed much of the south coast as being unsuitable for swimming, as well the bulk of the inner harbour including Oriental Bay.<\/p>\n

Much of the Miramar Peninsula is designated as “caution advised” for swimming.<\/p>\n

There was rain in Wellington overnight.<\/p>\n

\"Wellington<\/p>\n

\nWellington mayor Andrew Little, left, swims in Lyall Bay after announcing the lifting of a swimming ban.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

It was common practice for LAWA to suggest people not to swim in areas near rural or urban land for two to three days after prolonged rain.<\/p>\n

Little said at the announcement he advised residents to check the website before swimming and follow the advice on it.<\/p>\n

“I do want to be clear: a risk remains, but monitoring results so far show that it is low and it is now up to people to decide how they respond to the current information.”<\/p>\n

Little has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wellington’s south coast beaches have been rated as unsuitable for swimming just two days after the city’s mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-304102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}