Cullercoats is muddy.
Since 2018 the bay has scored bottom marks from the Environment Agency. Not “bad”. The lowest possible. They found bacteria linked to poop. Human. Animal. You choose.
For years the blame game dragged on.
Northumbrian Water pointed fingers at dirty groundwater. Groundwater is a handy scapegoat, really. Where does it come from? Who knows. The EA and the Council couldn’t crack the code. A seafront plagued for ages, stuck in limbo.
But something changed.
Now the water firm claims it fixed it. Or found the leak.
Survey teams dug around Beverley Terrace. They found broken public pipes. Damaged private ones. Household connections fitted wrong, sloppy work from years ago.
Seepage.
The sewage didn’t vanish. It sank. Into the ground. Then the groundwater. Then the bay. It was always about the pipes, just a slower route than we thought.
Northumbrian says these repairs should stop the flow. They suspect this is the source. The “polluted groundwater” theory? Still technically true. But now we know what polluted it.
Who pays for the decades of bad beach days? That’s the question nobody wants to answer.
