All swimming spots › City of Plymouth, England
Can I swim at Plymouth Firestone Bay?
City of Plymouth, 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 2023 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 100 per 100ml, on 28 August 2024; 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.
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.
Plymouth Firestone Bay was rated Excellent for 2025, the highest 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 rest of its file
What the regulator holds for this place. None of it describes the water today.
- Water
- Coastal
- Area
- City of Plymouth, England
- Monitored outfalls within 5km
- 60 or more (nearest 0.3km)
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 80m 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 free and as for customers of a business, as the mappers wrote it.
What is mapped at this beach
- Toilets about 120m away — charges a fee, step-free, baby change, hours as mapped: 24/7
- Drinking water about 110m away
- The Shack about 100m 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 Royal William Yard (NW-bound), Cremyll Street, about 270m away
- Nearest railway station Devonport Rail Station, 2.1 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 2023
In 2025, the 4 monitored overflows the Environment Agency lists against this bathing water spilled 63 times, for about 354 hours in total. Over the 2025 bathing season alone, 1 May to 30 September, 13 of those spills happened — 21% of the year.
- 202367 spills · 317 hours
- 202456 spills · 245 hours
- 202563 spills · 354 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
Firestone Bay is near the centre of Plymouth on the south coast of Devon. It is a shingle and rock beach approximately 150 metres wide.
What drains into it
The catchment surrounding Firestone Bay is approximately 171,000 hectares. It includes the Tamar and the Plym Estuaries which enter the sea in Plymouth Sound. The Tamar system includes the rivers Tamar, Tavy, Tiddy, and Lynher. The river Tamar rises close to Bude on the north coast of Cornwall and flows south for 50 kilometres (km) before becoming tidal approximately 30km inland at Gunnislake Weir. The Lynher rises on Bodmin Moor and flows for approximately 34km to the estuary at Plymouth. The Tiddy joins the Lynher in the upper estuary. The River Tavy rises in Dartmoor National Park and falls steeply for 28km to the tidal limit at Lopwell, before joining the Tamar Estuary 10km upstream from Plymouth Sound. The River Plym rises on the open moorland of south Dartmoor and becomes tidal five and a half kilometres before entering the sea at the eastern side of Plymouth Sound. The major maritime and industrial city of Plymouth contrasts strongly with the rural character of the upper catchments, which are populated by specialist dairy, beef and sheep farms and some arable land producing potatoes and maize. Historic mining and industrial activity has significantly affected land and water quality. Catchment Partners are working together throughout the catchment to improve overall water quality. This has led to programmes such as Upstream Thinking, Catchment Sensitive Farming, Intertidal Habitat creation and Seagrass bed improvements. Specific Catchment Partnership measures can be found on the River Basin Management Cycle 3 - https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/v/c3-plan/CatchmentPartnership/WEIF7201
More from the profile
Where the sewage works discharges
The Plymouth STW outfall discharges to Plymouth Sound approximately 800m west of Firestone Bay bathing water. This discharge is disinfected and designed to protect bathing water quality. There is another identified outfall which discharges sewage near the bathing water however the impact of this is currently unknown and under investigation.
What has been done about it
The sewage treatment scheme for Plymouth was completed by South West Water during the 1998 bathing season. A large number of untreated sewage discharges to Plymouth Sound and the Cattewater were removed and transferred to Plymouth sewage treatment works (STW). Sewage is treated to a secondary standard with ultraviolet (UV) disinfection. Improvements to several untreated discharges into the lower Tamar Estuary (Hamoaze), were also completed at that time. Since completion of this scheme the bathing water quality at Firestone Bay has improved significantly. Wastewater flows to Saltash STW were transferred to Ernesettle STW in 2000 and secondary treatment was completed by April 2001. A total of 12 discharges to the river Tamar were improved by the end of December 2002, and a further 16 discharges by the end of March 2003. Storm overflow event duration monitoring (EDM) was installed at eleven storm discharges to the Plym and Plymouth Sound by April 2012 and a further five in March 2016. Storm overflow event duration monitoring (EDM) was installed at 31 storm discharges to the Plym and Plymouth Sound by March 2018. UV disinfection was installed at Plymouth Central STW overflow by March 2018. Further improvements to the sewer network are due by March 2025.
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 Plymouth Firestone Bay for the three year (2023-2025) assessment period where data is available, sewage debris was not noted at this site. Litter was assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable for 2% of visits, with 42% of visits noting the presence of litter. Tarry residue was not noted at this site.
The council's part
The urban area of Plymouth immediately behind the beach is served by a combined (surface and sewer) system. The outfall from the Tinside Swimming Pool discharges to Plymouth Sound approximately 1.3km west of the Environment Agency monitoring point. Heavy rain falling on pavements and roads often flows into surface water drains or highway drains, ending up in local rivers and ultimately the sea. The quality of bathing water may be adversely affected as a result of such events.
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.
Plymouth Firestone Bay'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 Plymouth Firestone BayOr put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this beach on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Plymouth Firestone Bay, 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.