All swimming spots › Cornwall, England
Can I swim at Par Sands?
Cornwall, England · Coastal
Checking…
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 1,100 per 100ml, on 20 June 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. 1 of these is above the Good standard, so it is pinned to the top with a notch rather than the chart stretching to fit it.
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.
Par Sands was rated Good for 2025, the second of the four grades in the Bathing Water Regulations. That grade comes from bacterial samples taken over several seasons, so it describes the beach's record rather than the water on any given day.
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
- Cornwall, England
- Monitored outfalls within 5km
- 15 (nearest 0.9km)
- 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 120m 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. It is tagged as charging a fee, as the mappers wrote it.
What is mapped at this beach
- Toilets about 110m away — charges a fee, step-free
- Par Beach Cafe about 350m away
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 The Ship Inn (NW-bound), Polmear Hill, about 440m away
- Nearest railway station Par Rail Station, 1.2 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 2020
In 2025, the 3 monitored overflows the Environment Agency lists against this bathing water spilled 100 times, for about 1,603 hours in total. Over the 2025 bathing season alone, 1 May to 30 September, 6 of those spills happened — 6% of the year.
- 202084 spills · 987 hours
- 202160 spills · 656 hours
- 202247 spills · 595 hours
- 202393 spills · 1,511 hours
- 2024111 spills · 1,717 hours
- 2025100 spills · 1,603 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
Par Sands is on the south coast of Cornwall. It is a large sandy beach resort, approximately one kilometre wide, backed by sand dunes. The Polmear Stream flows across the beach into the sea.
What drains into it
The catchment surrounding Par Sands is approximately 7,150 hectares. The catchment consists of the Par River and tributaries, including Tywardreath Stream, Bokiddick Brook, Carbis Stream and Treverbyn Stream. The Par River rises near the A30 then flows for approximately 14.5km before reaching the sea. The upper half of the catchment follows fairly level ground, then quickly drops after it enters the steep sided Luxulyan. Much of the remainder of the river flows within wide flood plains. In the past the Par River has been affected by the China clay industry. The combined effects of clay mining, cross catchment transfers and the porous nature of the catchment, have reduced runoff from the steep gradient of the Par River resulting in reduced peak flows to the bathing water. A second smaller stream known as the Polmear Stream enters the sea at the eastern end of the beach approximately 220 metres (m) from the Environment Agency monitoring point. The catchment is mostly agricultural, with more than 50 farms. The rural areas are dominated by improved grassland with smaller areas of arable, woodland and a significant area where china clay mining dominates the landscape. Urban areas include Par, Tywardreath, Luxulyan and Roche. The catchment is within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
More from the profile
Where the sewage works discharges
The outfall from the Par STW discharges to St Austell Bay approximately 2.9km southwest of the bathing water. This discharge has been designed to protect bathing water quality.
What has been done about it
The need for sewage treatment around the northern part of St Austell Bay was identified to protect the bathing waters at Polkerris, Par, Shorthorn, Crinnis, Charlestown, Duporth and Porthpean. The South West Water sewage treatment scheme for Polkerris, which provides fine screening, was completed in 2003. A sewage treatment works (STW) for Par at Merthen Farm (north of Crinnis) was built by South West Water in 1992 and commissioned in 1993. The scheme included the collection of sewage from Par, Charlestown, Duporth, Porthpean and part of the St Austell catchment, and transfer via a tunnel sewer to Par STW where it receives secondary treatment before being discharged through a 1.3 kilometre (km) sea outfall south of Fishing Point in St Austell Bay. The scheme also included extensive resewerage and removal of various untreated discharges and a primary treated effluent discharge at Par Spit. The storm tank at Par STW and Harbour Road (No-2) pumping station storm overflow were improved by April 2006. The sewage treatment scheme for St Austell North (Luxulyan), which provides secondary treatment and ultraviolet (UV) disinfection, was completed in early 2006. Improvements to the storm discharge from St Austell North STW were also made at that time. Storm overflow event duration monitoring (EDM) was installed at Par No.2 pumping station and St Austell North STW by April 2011. Work to reduce the frequency of storm discharges from Tredenham Close CSO and EDM installation is scheduled for completion by April 2017. SWW completed work at Luxulyan sewage treatment works in March 2021 increasing the amount of wastewater that can be treated, as well as the amount of storm water that can be stored, by constructing a new storm water tank. Increasing the capacity of our network helps reduce the need for storm overflows to operate.
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 Par Sands for the four year (2022-2025) assessment period where data is available, sewage debris was not noted at this site. Litter was assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable for 1% of visits, with 68% of visits noting the presence of litter. Tarry residue was not noted at this site.
The council's part
The urban area of Par immediately behind the beach is served by a combined (surface and sewer) system.
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.
Par Sands'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 Par SandsOr put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this beach on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Par Sands, 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.