MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has called on the authorities to identify and eliminate every source of pollution which was degrading bathing waters along the West Somerset coast.

His intervention came after the Environment Agency rated the water quality at Dunster Beach as ‘poor ‘in its 2023 classifications.

Scarcely better were the ratings for Blue Anchor and Minehead, where only ‘sufficient’ verdicts have been issued.

Officials said Dunster Beach was being affected by agricultural run-off, sewage, dog fouling, and seabirds, although they conceded some of the data may have been affected by the wetter than usual summer.

They said investigations suggested quality at all three sites was being adversely affected by agricultural run-off and sewerage misconnections.

Separately, Wessex Water said it checked 22 farms in the Avill, Pill, and Carhampton catchment areas between April and July this year and found more than two-thirds were failing to comply with anti-pollution regulations.

More than 60 improvement actions were ordered and more than half of those had been implemented.

But there were also a number of foul water misconnections which were still under investigation.

Mr Liddell-Grainger, MP for West Somerset, said the situation had to be addressed urgently.

He said: “Dunster Beach is a very popular location and many people have invested heavily in chalets there.

“They are not going to be very happy about being told that it is fine for them to admire the sea but they would do well to avoid swimming in it.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger said he accepted bad weather may have skewed the pollution figures this year.

“But we cannot have farms discharging effluent and where there have been misconnections so that sewage is entering surface water drains, clearly this needs rectifying as a matter of urgency.

“This area depends heavily on tourism and we have to pull out all the stops to ensure that our beaches are made cleaner and safer for tourists to use.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger’s call came just two months after the Free Press reported on a mile-long raw sewage slick seen floating in the sea off Blue Anchor beach.