All swimming spots › Cornwall, England
Can I swim at Porthpean?
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, 2023 to 2026
45 samples, 2023 to 2026. The highest E. coli count in them was 55 per 100ml, on 31 August 2025; 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.
Every one of these counts is far below the standard for Excellent, which is why the bars sit low in the box: the gap above them is how far this water is from the line, and a flat row here is the good outcome. 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.
Porthpean 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 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
- 10 (nearest 0.2km)
- 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 180m 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 70m away
- A cafe about 50m 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 Pavilion Rise (SE-bound), about 560m away
- Nearest railway station St Austell Rail Station, 2.4 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 1 monitored overflow the Environment Agency lists against this bathing water spilled 0 times, for about 0 hours in total. Over the 2025 bathing season alone, 1 May to 30 September, 0 of those spills happened.
- 20200 spills · 0 hours
- 20210 spills · 0 hours
- 20220 spills · 0 hours
- 20230 spills · 0 hours
- 20240 spills · 0 hours
- 20250 spills · 0 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. Every year here is nought, which is what the water company reported for the 1 overflow the regulator links to this bathing water — not a statement about every pipe on this coast. An overflow near by can be counted against a different bathing water, or discharge through a long sea outfall that this return does not cover; the map above shows what is monitored within 2km.
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
Porthpean is on the south coast of Cornwall. It is a remote sandy beach, approximately 290 metres wide, surrounded by cliffs and hills.
What drains into it
The catchment surrounding Porthpean is approximately 48 hectares. There is a tiny stream 250m long which flows through Lower Porthpean before entering the sea at the southern end of the beach. The catchment slopes steadily from the west to the east. A large part of the catchment is taken up by a golf course, and the rest is urban and agricultural land with just one or two farms. The small settlements of Higher and Lower Porthpean are in the south of the catchment.
More from the profile
Where the sewage works discharges
The outfall from Par STW discharges to the sea approximately 3.4km east of this bathing water. This discharge is 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.
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 Porthpean for the four year (2022-2025) assessment period where data is available, sewage debris was not noted at this site. Litter was not assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable, but was observed as being present on 46% of visits. Tarry residue was not noted at this site.
The council's part
The urban area of Porthpean immediately behind the beach is served by a combined (surface and sewer) system. There is a surface water outfall from the slipway.
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.
Porthpean'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 PorthpeanOr put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this beach on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Porthpean, 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.