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Water quality

Get involved and help maintain our rivers

  • The Rivers Trust runs a ‘Big River Watch’ every year, asking volunteers to download their app and tell them what you see at your local rivers.
  • The Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Project professionally trains volunteers to carry out surveys on Lincolnshire’s chalk streams. Find out how to apply at Riverfly Surveying.

Who is responsible for monitoring the water quality?

The Environment Agency is responsible for regulating water quality in public open waters such as rivers, ponds and chalk streams and managing water pollution incidents. The Environment Agency can investigate and carry out enforcement action against companies and businesses that cause water pollution.

The Environment Agency (EA) investigates and responds to pollution incidents that threaten the environment.  To report an incident of pollution in a water course, you can call the Environment Agency hotline on 0800 80 70 60

The providers of the mains water in North East Lincolnshire is Anglian Water. They are responsible for:

  • Maintaining public sewers
  • Providing clean water
  • Managing waste water

NELC are responsible for monitoring the quality of private water supplies.  Further information is available on the Private supplies of drinking water page.

The Council works closely with Anglian Water as part of the Northern Becks Catchment Based Approach Partnership (CaBA) to improve water quality in North East Lincolnshire. The Partnership has its own management plan which provide a set of aims agreed by the catchment partnership to improve the Northern Becks catchment. Lincs Chalk stream Project (LCSP) host the partnership and the management plan, Northern Becks CaBA | Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Trust,   northern becks Catchment management plan (catchmentbasedapproach.org).

For more information on what Anglian Water are doing to improve water quality, please visit Environment.

Bathing water

The Environment Agency monitors water quality at designated bathing water sites, to protect the health of people bathing under the ‘Bathing Water Regulations’.

A designated bathing water must:

  • be a coastal or inland water
  • have at least 100 bathers a day during the bathing season (15 May to 30 September)
  • have toilet facilities bathers can use during the bathing season, within a short distance of up to about 500m from the site.

We work closely with the Environmental Agency and Anglian Water regarding our bathing water designations.

Our designated bathing waters

Rivers, chalk streams and blow wells

The River Freshney is a beautiful chalk-stream fed river that meanders through Grimsby.  The river rises from a series of springs – the furthest south just to the north of Beelsby. It flows north and is joined by another stream, which flows past earthworks, dating from the English Civil War, before both pass under the A18 Laceby to Barnoldby-Le-Beck road. Team Gate Drain rises just to the west of Waltham and flows to the west. It is joined by the stream from Welbeck Hill, which rises close to the A18 on the edge of the Wolds. Having combined, they flow northwards, passing under the A46 and the old course of the road through Laceby. The river is called Laceby Beck as it flows along the eastern edge of Laceby. Although it starts off as a chalk stream, at the Green Bridge Laceby Beck becomes the River Freshney, losing the characteristics of a chalk stream as the channel is wider, creating lower flows and more sedimentation.

The Lincolnshire chalk streams are part of the Lincolnshire Wolds landscape, which has been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Rain that falls on the Wolds is filtered through the underlying chalk aquifer, which can soak up and hold rainwater like a sponge. Water then moves through fissures (cracks) in the chalk. The water emerges at ground level, from springs and blow wells, crystal clear and with a constant temperature of 10°C. These are ideal conditions to provide drinking water and is home to the most rare and threatened plants and animals, such as water crowfoot, water vole, otter, European eel and Brown trout. 

A blow well appears in the coastal plain, unlike a spring at the bottom of a hill. Between Louth and Barton-Upon-Humber, the right conditions for blow wells exist. The chalk from the Lincolnshire Wolds extends under the Lincolnshire Marsh and the Humber Estuary. Rainfall on the Wolds seeps down to the water table and moves through the chalk towards the Humber Estuary. The ground under the marsh is mostly clay, covering the chalk and the groundwater. This groundwater is under pressure, and if there’s an opening in the clay, it can rise to the surface. This is what makes a blow well different from other springs.

Biodiversity

  • The Wild Trout Trust carry out improvements works and engagement in river habitat, delivering projects in partnership with landowners and organisations.
  • The Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership have the ongoing Project Watervole which aims to eradicate mink from Greater Lincolnshire, a highly damaging, invasive, non-native species.
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Partners and projects

LCST logo

Northern Becks Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)

The Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Partnership (LCSP) established the Northern Becks CaBA Partnership in 2015. As part of the partnership, NELC has agreed to follow the CaBA management plan and their aims to improve the are and its chalk streams.

Defra logo

Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Project

Grimsby was one of 25 pilot projects to receive a share of the £150 million Defra funded Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Project. You can read about the successful funding bid in the news section of our website.

Project Groundwater logo

Greater Lincolnshire Ground Water Project

The Council received funding for the Greater Lincolnshire Ground Water Project, working alongside Lincolnshire County Council, the EA, LCSP, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, North Lincolnshire Council on Project Groundwater.

Love every drop anglian water

Anglian Water

Like NELC, Anglian Water are part of the CaBA partnership and a partner of the LCSP, who they allocate funding to annually and work closely with. See what they are doing to support the environment and to invest in water quality.

Flooding

The council works with the other risk management authorities (the Environment Agency, Anglian Water and the Drainage Boards) to manage the risk of flooding from all sources in the borough.

The website has a dedicated area for flooding guidance and advice, as well as information on who is responsible for the flooding and our policies and strategies.

Flooding information

Contact details

  • [email protected]
  • Environmental Team, Doughty Road Depot, Doughty Road, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, DN32 OLL

Related pages

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