\n The Environment Agency’s bathing water quality website warns people to stay out of the water at Heacham, near Hunstanton because of a “pollution incident”.\n<\/p>\n
\n Both the village’s beaches had been plagued by poor water quality for years, before being rated “Adequate” last November.\n<\/p>\n
\n “This bathing water is subject to short-term pollution procedures,” the latest warning says.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The Environment Agency makes a daily pollution risk forecast at this site based on the effects of rain, wind and seasonality on bathing water quality.\n<\/p>\n
\n “These factors affect the levels of bacteria that get washed into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via rivers and streams and how they disperse.”\n<\/p>\n
\n After a short-term pollution event, the EA said bacteria levels usually return to normal within one or two days, though warnings may last longer.\n<\/p>\n
\n Heacham’s coastal waters had been classified as “poor” by the agency between 2021 and 2025, with droppings from seabirds believed to be responsible for poor water quality.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last November, the water quality was rated as “adequate” and given a one-star rating meaning it was safe to swim in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Environment Agency’s bathing water quality website warns people to stay out of the water at Heacham, near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-758682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}