Boulters to Bray Swim on for 2025 return as swimmers hit back at sewage fears

An historic River Thames swimming event is set to return to the Maidenhead calendar in 2025 – one year on from its cancellation over sewage pollution.

Boulters to Bray Swim, which dates back more than a century and sees hundreds of entries each year, was cancelled in 2024 over risks to swimmers’ safety due to sewage in the Thames.

More fears over river safety were raised in a report from environmental activist group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) which found 77 per cent of sites tested – including Boulters Lock, Bourne End and Windsor – were rated ‘poor’.

But swimmers using the Thames, including those who collected data for Maidenhead used in the report, have hit back against claims the river is unsafe.

And although Boulters to Bray organisers say water quality testing will be ramped up in the build up to the event, it is hoped the event will go ahead.  

Bray to Boulters Swim organiser Keith Dixon told the Advertiser he was ‘optimistic’ the race would return this year.

 Keith Dixon said he hoped better river testing would allow the 2025 swim to go ahead.

“What’s changed for us is an understanding of the way that we can run it,” he said.

“I think our decision-making process is much clearer as to when there are those high-risk times - which is rainfall in the days before the event.”

Discussing the SAS report, Keith said he ‘wasn’t surprised’ by the data – which showed spikes in e coli- a harmful bacteria -  in the Thames at Boulters Lock over winter. 

Pollution releases from treatment works - like Thames Water's Little Marlow works upstream of Boulters Lock - often increase over the winter months when rainfall is higher.

And the SAS report data did show improved quality during spring and summer. 

“The river is never a completely safe place for people to swim,” Keith added. 

 “It’s not a swimming pool and it’s not a bath at home – so it’s not a sanitised environment.

“From my point of view, the best that we can do is inform people of the risks in a general way and also do as much testing as possible prior to the event.”

He said river testing would be taking place in the same laboratory that SAS used to assess the data collected for its report.

Entries for the race in July are set to open in late January.

Maidenhead resident Sean Haywood has enjoyed open water swimming in the River Thames near Boulters Lock and the Jubilee River for nearly 20 years.

The Flowerpots - Sean (rear centre-right).

“I know it's not as bad as you see on the news,” he said. “I think we’re really lucky that our stretch of river really isn’t that bad.”

Sean is part of The Flowerpots swimmers, a group of around 20 swimmers who use the river at Maidenhead regularly between spring and late autumn.

He was also part of the SAS data collectors for results at Boulter’ Lock, who have tested river quality every week at a monitoring station at a pontoon off Islet Road. 

These results, and those of other citizen scientists, are uploaded to an online database.

“Sometimes weeks go by where the water quality is excellent,” Sean said.

Sean’s data did show that levels of e coli spiked in the Thames during the winter months when rainfall was higher.

His data also showed a high level of e coli during July last year, when the Boulters to Bray Swim was scheduled to take place.

He said this was because high rainfall often leads to a rise in river pollution – caused by sewage releases and water runoff from roads.  

Sean said: “If you’re a regular swimmer, I tend to find we just know when to swim and when not to swim.

He added, ‘none of us [Flowerpots] have gotten sick’.

Fellow Maidonian Tara Crist runs Paddleboard Maidenhead, a company organising paddleboarding experiences for hundreds of people each year on the River Thames.

Tara Crist has also helped collect river quality data with The Flowerpots

She has used the river for more than 15 years but took up swimming in the River Thames with the Flowerpots this year to ‘show people it was safe’.

“We’ve all been swimming head down in the water - and paddleboarding all summer,” Tara said.

“But it [fears over river pollution] has affected the businesses because people are afraid of it.”

In previous years Paddleboard Maidenhead, founded in 2017, would take a few thousand customers onto the water but Tara said this dropped to around 800 in 2024.

Tara joined the March For Clean Water in November, which saw thousands of environmental protestors flood London and demand water authorities take action to clean up waterways.

“We had a huge amount of people who would not paddle this year because of information in the media,” added Tara.

“I wouldn’t say it’s misinformation, but people are scared of going in the water.”

Tara and Sean have called for bathing water status to be granted for the Thames at Maidenhead, which gives the river stronger environmental protections from sewage and other pollution.

The SAS report also called for stronger environmental legislation from the Environment Agency (EA) and Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra).

A Defra spokesperson said: “Too many of our popular swimming spots are polluted.

“That’s why this government is cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas for good, including modernising the bathing water regulations in the first shake-up for over a decade.

“We have already taken swift action to place water companies under special measures through the Water Bill, which will ban the payment of bonuses for polluting water bosses and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers.”

EA chairman Alan Lovell said: “Bathing waters are hugely important for communities and for the environment – and we know there is growing public demand for bathing sites across the country, including at our lakes and rivers.

 “While overall bathing water quality has improved in recent decades due to targeted investment and robust regulation, today’s results show there is much work still to do, particularly to bring our inland bathing waters up to standard.

 “We are working with the water industry, farmers and local authorities and are investing in our regulation, with more people on the ground, updated digital assets and new legal powers to improve our bathing waters for all.”