All swimming spots › Arun, England
Can I swim at Bognor Regis (Aldwick)?
Arun, England · Coastal
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Before you get in
A red flag means do not go in, whatever this page says.
If you get into trouble, float on your back until the cold shock passes. Full advice below.
In an emergency call 999 and ask for the Coastguard, or 112 in the Republic of Ireland.
Water quality today
The last fortnight
What this verdict covers
Independent site, not an official one. This verdict is about water quality. It does not tell you whether the water is safe to get into today.
How it has been rated
The annual classification for 2021 to 2025. Each one is calculated from samples taken over up to four bathing seasons, so these overlap and none of them describes today.
Every sample, 2024 to 2026
45 samples, 2024 to 2026. The highest E. coli count in them was 3,300 per 100ml, on 14 August 2026; the standard for Excellent is 250 or below and for Good 500 or below.
One bar for each sample, oldest on the left. The taller the bar, the more E. coli that bottle held.
The scale is the same on every beach on this site, which is why a clean beach looks flat — the bars are measured against the standard rather than against that beach’s own worst day. Hover or tap a bar for that day’s figures. A single count over a line is not a failed beach. The classification is worked out as the 90th and 95th percentile of four years of samples, so one bad morning does not decide it — and one good morning does not either. 2 of these are above the Good standard, so they are pinned to the top with a notch rather than the chart stretching to fit them.
What these bacteria mean for you
Neither one is what makes people ill by itself. They are markers: they live in the gut, so finding them means sewage or animal waste has reached the water, and whatever else came with it is likely there too.
The usual way to catch something is swallowing the water, and the usual result is a stomach upset. Ear, eye, chest and skin infections are the other common ones. Putting your head under and swimming with an open cut both raise the odds.
The riskiest time is the day or two after heavy rain, when storm overflows discharge and rain washes off farmland — including at beaches rated Excellent for the rest of the season. That is the whole reason this page shows you rainfall and discharges alongside the grade.
Bognor Regis (Aldwick) was rated Poor for 2025, below the minimum standard, based on samples taken across recent seasons. That grade comes from bacterial samples taken over several seasons rather than from the water today — but a Poor rating does not only describe the past. Advice against bathing is posted at a Poor bathing water for the whole season, which is why it sets the verdict at the top of this page every day until the season closes.
The Environment Agency issues a pollution risk forecast each morning during the bathing season for nearly every bathing water in England, and the water company publishes the status of its storm overflows every few minutes.
The regulator records this as a bathing water whose quality can be affected by heavy rain, which is why rainfall in the last 24 hours is shown above.
The rest of its file
What the regulator holds for this place. None of it describes the water today.
- Water
- Coastal
- Area
- Arun, England
- Monitored outfalls within 5km
- 9 (nearest 0.5km)
- Affected by heavy rain
- Yes, per the regulator
Sea, wind, tide and weather
The sea and the weather here today and for the week ahead. Not the water quality verdict above.
Today
Rain, the week behind and ahead
The weather for the week ahead
Where it is, and what discharges near it
Directions to this bathing water
That is the Environment Agency’s sampling point, which is at the water rather than at a car park. Your maps app will take you to the nearest road it can reach.
The nearest mapped car park is about 40m away in a straight line. That is not a walking distance: OpenStreetMap knows where the car park is and nothing about the path, which may be longer, steeper or not there at all.
What is mapped at this beach
- Toilets about 260m away — charges a fee
- Drinking water about 30m away
- West Park Café about 260m away
- Dogs — Dogs are mapped as not allowed. Seasonal dog bans are council orders rather than map data, so the sign at the entrance is the authority.
Straight-line distances from OpenStreetMap, not walking distances, and only what volunteers have mapped — something missing here may still be there.
Getting here without a car
- Nearest bus stop Princess Avenue (adj), King's Parade, about 120m away
- Nearest railway station Bognor Regis Rail Station, 1.3 km away
Straight-line distances to where the stop or station is, from the national registers of them. That a stop exists is not a promise that a bus calls at it — timetables are somebody else’s data and this page does not read them, so check the operator before you rely on it.
The record since 2021
In 2025, the 8 monitored overflows the Environment Agency lists against this bathing water spilled 84 times, for about 247 hours in total. Over the 2025 bathing season alone, 1 May to 30 September, 24 of those spills happened — 29% of the year.
- 202166 spills · 266 hours
- 2022112 spills · 798 hours
- 2023220 spills · 2,236 hours
- 2024178 spills · 1,473 hours
- 202584 spills · 247 hours
These are annual totals for the whole year, not readings from today — today’s answer is the verdict at the top of the page. Figures come from the Environment Agency’s Event Duration Monitoring annual returns, which the water companies submit and the EA publishes, and the EA decides which overflows count as belonging to this bathing water.
What the regulator says about this beach
From the Environment Agency’s published bathing water profile for 2026. It describes the place and its catchment, not today’s water.
The beach itself
The bathing water is a resort beach on the south coast in West Sussex, adjacent to the town of Bognor Regis. The beach is predominantly shingle with some sand exposed at low tide. A promenade sits above much of the beach and there is a pier to the east.
What drains into it
The bathing water is situated in a low lying area. There are no streams within the vicinity of the beach but there are several surface water outfalls which drain the urban area immediately behind the bathing water. The natural drainage (hydrological) catchment into the bathing water is approximately 230 hectares. The entrance to Pagham Harbour is situated 5 km to the southwest. The wider surrounding area is predominantly rural (arable and managed grassland) and most streams and drainage in this area either enters into the harbour or flows eastwards towards the Aldingbourne Rife 2.5km away.
More from the profile
What has been done about it
Prior to 2001, treated sewage was discharged from Bognor long sea outfall (3 km from the bathing water). In 2001, flows from Bognor Long Sea Outfall were diverted to a new sewage treatment works at Ford for further treatment and then discharged out of Littlehampton Long Sea Outfall (11km from the bathing water). The Bognor outfall was retained solely for storm discharges. In 1998, improvements were made to several storm overflows that discharge into the surface water system. During 2010 to 2015, Southern Water were involved in a programme of investigations to identify causes of contamination to the surface water system that drains rainfall to the beach in Bognor Regis. Under the programme of works for Southern Water (from 2020 to 2022) further investigations within the catchment were carried out. This will help to identify where bathing water improvements may be needed in the future.
What the samplers see on the sand
Environment Agency samplers make observations of litter present on the beach at every visit, this includes assessments of sewage debris, litter and tar. At Bognor Regis (Aldwick) for the four year (2022-2025) assessment period where data is available, sewage debris was not assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable, but was observed as being present on 1% of visits. Litter was not assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable, but was observed as being present on 58% of visits. Tarry residue was not noted at this site.
The council's part
A partnership group including the Environment Agency, Arun District Council and Southern Water are working together to investigate and understand the risks to bathing water quality and put measures in place to make improvements.
Published by the Environment Agency under the Open Government Licence. The full profile carries more, including sections repeated for every beach that are not reproduced here.
Other swimming spots nearby
The closest bathing waters on the regulators’ lists, straight-line distance. Each has its own checks and its own verdict.
Check the official source
The regulator’s own page for this bathing water. If it disagrees with this one, believe theirs.
Bognor Regis (Aldwick)'s official page at the Environment Agency · See it on a map
This page is not official. It reads published data and presents it plainly; if a sign at the beach says otherwise, believe the sign.
If you get into trouble
This is the RNLI’s advice, not ours.
Float. Tilt your head back with your ears in the water. Relax and let your breathing settle. Move your hands and legs gently to stay level. Your legs may sink, and that is fine, everyone floats differently. The first shock of cold water passes in less than a minute, so do not try to swim straight away. Once it has passed, call for help or swim to safety.
Caught in a rip current? Do not swim against it, you will only tire yourself out. If you can stand, wade out of it. If the water is too deep to stand, swim parallel to the beach until you are clear of it, then head for shore. Raise your hand and shout for help.
Nobody publishes a rip current forecast for beaches in Britain or Ireland, so this site cannot show you one. The RNLI has one for its own lifeguards. The public does not. Look at the water before you get in, and look for a channel where the waves are not breaking.
In an emergency call 999 and ask for the Coastguard. In the Republic of Ireland call 112 or 999 and ask for the Coast Guard.
Where there are lifeguards, swim between the red and yellow flags. They put those flags where it is safest that day and move them as the sea changes. A red flag means do not go in, whatever this page says. An orange windsock means the wind is blowing offshore and inflatables should stay out of the water. Most places on this site have no lifeguard at all.
This advice is the RNLI’s. Their Float to Live pages are worth two minutes of anyone’s time.
Use this page elsewhere
One sheet of A4 with a QR code to this page, for a clubhouse, a campsite reception, a surf school or a harbour office. The address is printed underneath in words, so it still works for anybody who would rather not scan a code.
Print a sign for Bognor Regis (Aldwick)Or put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this beach on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Bognor Regis (Aldwick), updating itself. Paste this where you want it to appear. It loads nothing of yours and sets no cookies, and it costs your visitors about ten kilobytes, most of it the readings themselves.
Click the box to select it all. There is also a feed for this beach, if you would rather be told than have to look.