Questions and Answers

Please see our Q&As below, just click the + next to each question for each answer.

  • The Environment Agency will develop a bathing water profile and is monitoring the bathing water weekly. Resources to address any failings have to be made available.  The data about water quality will be made available  during the bathing season (15 May to 30 September).  Designation will increase pressure on South West Water to clean up the River Lim as it is believed that the main source of any pollution at Church Beach is the River Lim. You can check the results by searching the Environment Agency data website. https://environment.data.gov.uk/bwq/

  • The current Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) allows dogs on all Lyme Regis beaches from September to May. During the summer, dogs are not allowed on the two front town beaches from 1 May to 30 September.

    Dogs are allowed on Monmouth, Church Cliff and East Cliff Beaches all year round. The PSPO is not linked to bathing beach designation. https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/w/dog-public-spaces-protection-orders

  • Sometimes it’s hard to tell if scummy or foamy water, unpleasant rotting smells and brown sediment is sewage pollution or coming from natural causes like algae or dissolved soil or mud. This briefing by the Environment Agency will help identify algal blooms.

  • The current state of the River Lim is improving over the very bad water quality and Riverfly (invertebrate)  counts we found initially in 2022. Hopefully promised investment will greatly improve overall river ecology and our invertebrate numbers will increase substantially. You can read more about the status of the river in our Ecology Report. https://turnlymegreen.co.uk/news/river-lim-improvement-plan

  • It's both! The River Lym spelling may seem an appropriate spelling for Lyme Regis’ river and is preferred by some. In the past people would have spelt it in different ways and it still sounded the same.

    However, the River Lim Action Group is raising awareness of the poor health of the river with local and national agencies and it is necessary to use the spelling ‘Lim’ that is recognised by those responsible.

    The Environment Agency, South West Water, Lyme Regis Town Council, Dorset Council, the Ordnance Survey, most other maps and all formal documentation use the ‘Lim’ spelling.  We can only be effective if we use the spelling most commonly used by those we seek to influence.

  • The Citizen Science volunteers monitor the water quality at 8 points on the river every month; recording temperature, dissolved solids, turbidity, phosphates and ammonia.
    Once a month water samples are collected by our volunteers from 5 points in sea and river and sent off to a lab to test for E.Coli and Enterococci bacteria.

    The Riverfly team take standardised kick samples from 7 sites along the river then identify and count 8 key larval invertebrate species. These are sensitive to water quality and so the numbers and diversity give an indication of ecological health. The results are entered onto Cartographer adding to the national data base.  The Riverfly monitoring is carried out monthly from May to October.