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CRAG Little Shore has been shortlisted for the Northumberland County Council LOVE Northumberland awards for achieving bathing water designation for Little Shore.

We have described in previous blogs the huge effort put in by our CRAG Little Shore volunteers to gather the support and the evidence necessary for the successful application. And we have described how so many of those that enjoy Little Shore came to celebrate at the Big Splash. Now, hopefully, the CRAG Little Shore volunteers will be honoured by the Northumberland County Council.

The LOVE Northumberland Awards are an annual celebration of community environmental work in the county. They allow the County Council to recognise the fantastic work of a great many groups and individuals who are doing their bit to make the county greener, cleaner, and more sustainable.

The awards, now in their 15th year, will be announced in a special event at the Alnwick Garden with the Duchess of Northumberland on Wednesday 24th June. Fingers crossed that the CRAG Little Shore volunteers come away with the top prize.

The Big Splash wasn’t the only event at the Puffin Festival (as I’m sure many of you already know), it was also where the latest of book of poems by friend of CRAG Ali Rowland was launched.

Ali writes, “At last, after some time assembling this, I’m able to announce the publication of ‘Coquet Tales: Stories of Amble and the surrounding area, Volume 1’ a collaboration with the award-winning photographer Jim Donnelly. This collection combines my poems and short prose with Jim’s stunning images to celebrate our area of coastal Northumberland in words and pictures.”

We have featured some of Ali’s poems on our website in the past (Creative responses to the Coquet, Coquet Notes and Meeting the boatman on the path). Ali gains great inspiration from the RIver Coquet, as we all do, and we wish her well with this latest publication.

After all the hard work, our volunteers were able to celebrate with many other people who like using Little Shore. The Big Splash event at Amble’s Puffin Festival was a perfect time to celebrate the achievement of bathing water designation for Little Shore.

CRAG joined with the Swimblers and Fenwick Ridley, Team GB open water and ice swimming competitor (aka the Ice Viking) at the Big Splash, to highlight the successful bathing water designation application and the benefit this will be for the town, it’s businesses and local residents.

The Ambler, Amble’s local community paper, is very supportive of Little Shore, featuring both the successful bathing water designation announcement and the Big Splash celebration.

Little Shore – we’ve done it. On 15 May 2026, Little Shore received bathing water designation from DEFRA (The Ambler: https://www.theambler.co.uk/2026/05/15/now-we-can-celebrate-ambles-little-shore-awarded-bathing-water-status/). This is thanks to all the hard work of the volunteers from the CRAG Little Shore group.

Bathing water designation means that the Environment Agency is legally required to monitor the quality of the water and to display signs indicating whether the water is suitable for bathing. Furthermore, if the water is found to be polluted, the Environment Agency is required to track down the source of that pollution and put in place measures to reduce pollution.

Our volunteers, alongside volunteers from Amble Swimblers (a wild swimming group) spent many hours and days informing and exciting the community about the benefits of bathing water designation. They received 20 letters of support from politicians, businesses, government agencies and other envronmental and community groups. Over 550 people responded to a public opinion survey, and over 300 people were recorded bathing in Little Shore over two afternoons. The hard work has paid off.

Designation for Little Shore is good for the rest of the Coquet. There will now be more visibility of sources of pollution throughout the catchment. Specifically, the extra monitoring will be good for the bird and other wildlife in the estuary, mudflats and saltmarshes next to Little Shore, including a population of rare dwarf eelgrass in the saltmarsh in Castle Dyke (behind the Warkworth dunes).

A celebration is planned. CRAG will have a stall to highlight this acheivement right through the Puffin Festival on 23rd and 24th of May, and at 11am on the 24th is the Big Splash. We are hoping that as many people as possible with swim of paddle on Little Shore to show support. Fenwick Ridley – the Ice Viking – will be presiding (https://www.theambler.co.uk/2026/05/08/the-big-splash-ambles-little-shore/). The team hopes to see you there.

CRAGs Rothbury WI and Rothbury CAN water quality groups were out on a fine morning in May, riverfly sampling with the Dr Thomlinson C of E Middle School Biodiversity Group. The event marked the launch of CRAG’s riverfly kick sampling project, to collect data on riverfly numbers at different sites along the Coquet.

Riverfly kick sampling is a technique that provides a measure of the river’s health by recording numbers of riverfly over time to track any changes.  Along with other freshwater invertebrates, riverfly are at the heart of the freshwater ecosystem and provide a vital link in the aquatic food chain. Their limited mobility, relatively long-life cycle, presence throughout the year, and specific tolerances to changes in environmental conditions make them good indicators of water quality. 

We were delighted to be assisted by over 20 children from the local middle school biodiversity group, who walked down from the school in their wellies to learn about the importance of invertebrates to freshwater ecosystems, the kick testing method used to obtain a sample and the identification techniques required to tell your Caddisflies from your Mayflies.  One of the conclusions of the morning was surely that it’s not as easy as it looks to identify different species, even with a useful ID chart to hand; especially as they don’t keep still!  Luckily after all that activity there was some squash and homemade cake to fortify teachers and children for the walk back up the hill to school.

If anyone is interested in taking part in riverfly sampling or learning more about the projects CRAG is involved in on the Coquet please do contact us coquetriveractiongroup@outlook.com.

Photos: Left – Introduction to riverfly whilst disinfectant on boots dries; Right – Close examination needed!

Photo: Good kicking technique is essential to get a decent sample!

A poem by Ali Rowland

We meet him just after a heatwave has broken,

and the air feels as thick as honey, difficult to breathe.

Perhaps that’s why we wonder if he’s an apparition,

maybe the ancient ferryman, although he says he rows

the dinghy that takes tourists to the hermit’s cave,

across the spot where it’s easy to throw

a stick, a ball, or a thought across.

Anyway, he asks if we have seen the kingfisher, or any otters,

but no, we’ve only seen the ducks with their inverted bums,

and the piles of floating scum that might disguise crocodiles

in more exotic places.

It starts to rain a little as we talk, warm, swollen drops,

and we see the boatman’s getting wet, surely proof

he’s not a ghost, and that this is not always a magic river.

Author’s note: This poem is, as they say on Netflix, based on ‘true events’ and chats we’ve had along the river. Only the ghostly part is fiction.

On 13th May 2025, CRAG launched a public consultation supporting a bid for bathing water status for Amble’s Little Shore Beach. You can read about that on our previous blog post, but here is what we’ve been up to since!

Amble Puffin Festival on the 24^th May was the perfect opportunity to get our Puffins out to promote the bid and gather more surveys from the public to support the application!

Dry Water Arts Centre in Amble hosted a Community Creative Event on June 21^st where all could drop in to express their feelings for the beach.

They also hosted a free event to learn how to read the water and say safe in the water with channel swimmer, Frabces Anderson, Ice Mile Antartic Swimmer, Jane Hardy and Tim Hardy of the Shorebase Trust.

Dovecote Street Arts hosted a fabulous CRIT on the Beach evening for us on the 24^th June which really helped to publicise the application to a wider audience.

Counting bather numbers is essential to the survey and the first weekend in July saw over 100 bathers counted on both days which is fantastic.  Even more swimmers were counted on a second survey day in early August.

We’ve been blown away by the support for the Little Shore bathing water application. We submitted the applciation well before the 31st October 2025 closing date so what can we expect to happen next?

From November 2025 – Februrary 2026 DEFRA will follow up with any specific questions they have about our application.

Between Februrary – March 2026 DEFRA will launch a public consultation. In 2024 this ran for two weeks from 26th Feb-10th March, and will seek views from the public about whether Little Shore should be added to the list of designated bathing waters in England.

We will be notified if our application is sucessful by 15th May 2026.

If you want to know more or how you can get involved, you can find information on our What can you do page, or contact us using our email: coquetriveractiongroup@outlook.com

CRAG has been super busy these last months launching and supporting a bid for bathing water status for Amble’s much loved Little Shore beach.  This beach at the mouth of the River Coquet has become the focus of a community-led effort to obtain the Environment Agency’s important Bathing Water Designation (BWD), bringing a boost to the family friendly shores of Amble. 

A successful bathing water status designation would create a ‘blue space’ for all users of Little Shore to match those held by neighbouring Amble Links and Warkworth beaches. The application has been submitted and was supported by the Harbour Commission, Amble Town Council, Amble Rotary Club, Northumberland County Council, The Swimblers, Amble WI, Surfers Against Sewage. The application was led by the Coquet River Action Group’s (CRAG) Little Shore group.

Applying for bathing water status is a great way to ensure the beach has regular monitoring and reporting of the water quality, placing a greater obligation on the Environment Agency to take action to reduce sewage discharges and other pollution sources.  It obliges the local council to provide better public information and to raise awareness of the beach’s water quality which benefits all users of the area.  The status is a vital tool in protecting public health, improving water quality and ensuring everyone can enjoy the space.  Applications involve a lot of community effort to demonstrate the level of usage of and community support for the beach, beginning with a public consultation and the all-important survey!

CRAG launched the public consultation on Tuesday 13^th May 2025, at the packed-out Coquet Yacht Club in Amble, hosted by Amble & Warkworth Rotary clubs and supported by The Swimblers. The deadline for applications was 31st October 2025, and successful applications will be announced in 2026.

CRAG visits the Warkworth water treatment plant

Water is extracted from the River Coquet at Warkworth and used across Northumberland and the northern suburbs of Newcastle. This is the water that comes through our taps. The water is treated by the Warkworth Water Treatment Plant to ensure it is safe for us to drink.

In November 2024, the Warkworth and Amble Rivers Group (WARivers) who are members of CRAG organised visits to the Warkworth Water Treatment Plant for CRAG volunteers.

One of the volunteers from Amble put together a very informative report of the visit. A member of the Treatment Plant agreed that the report could be placed on the CRAG website.