Experts say the UK has an 'endemic' problem with river pollution due to agriculture and sewage from storm overflow.
Only 14% of Britain's rivers meet Good Ecological Status and that figure has not changed since 2009, according to the Environment Agency. It compares poorly to France, where hundreds of rivers already have bathing water status.
"When it rains heavily - and it should be in exceptional circumstances but our sewage system is so undergunned for the demands on it that it overflows even with light rain - large quantities of water get washed off large surfaces so that sewers get filled up and beyond capacity," he said. Mr Lloyd agreed that designating more rivers as bathing waters would help address the problem by encouraging polluters to improve the level of investment in water treatment and reduce the number of sewage overflows.Wild swimming has surged in popularity during the pandemic
The company is conducting its own investigation using underwater probes that measure a variety of different parameters 24 hours a day."It doesn't give people real-time water information on which to make a decision. It takes measurements and then reports them days later. What we are doing is using artificial intelligence to convert easy to measure data into really important data which could affect public health.