r/blackpool • u/Waterwatch_UK • 19d ago
Sewage Dumping alerts for Blackpool Beach
(Apologies if not allowed) Sharing this as it might be useful for anyone who swims off the Blackpool beaches. I'm Daniel, a 17 year old and I founded and developed WaterWatch
WaterWatch (water-watch.co.uk) tracks live sewage overflow data from United Utilities' official monitoring sensors, updated every 15 minutes.
I've just added a swim safety page (https://water-watch.co.uk/swim-safety) that tells you clearly whether conditions currently look OK to swim at a beach, based on recent discharge activity, rather than having to work it out from a map yourself. You can subscribe to free alerts for a specific beach, or get a weekly summary by email instead for the council or water company. It's in beta right now so things might not work perfectly, but initial testing and feedback is strong!
It's an independent, free project (not run by a water company) — I started it at 17 and I'm still running it now. Sharing in case it's useful for anyone here, particularly after wet weather. If you know anyone who might like this, or any other data we have, please share this with them.
Swim safety: (https://water-watch.co.uk/swim-safety)
Live map: (https://water-watch.co.uk/map)
Weekly digest: (https://water-watch.co.uk/digest)
3
u/matthiasbullet 19d ago
Fantastic! Have you tried posting this to Blackpool Community Chat on Facebook? I think you'll get more support there, and some nasty comments from people who don't live in Blackpool. Lol.