Dear Editor,

Please may I make a few comments to express concern about the forthcoming fundraising event for the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA), which will be held on the River Wye during September.

First and foremost, I am all in favour of sensible fundraising events, some of which carry some element of risk. The Wild Wye Swim crosses the boundary between sensible and darn-right foolish.

Every summer we read of drownings in rivers, lakes and ponds, sometimes involving strong and experienced swimmers, what then follows are appeals by the police and rescue services for people not to swim in these locations, and as a rule, this can be followed by another fatality within a few weeks.

It seems strange to be that this is a fundraising event for a rescue service that has been called out in the past to rescue canoeists and boatmen, and to search for bodies in the River Wye.

The Wye is a strong and powerful river with many deep pools and undercurrents, large weed beds and overhanging trees and bushes, not the sort of place to spend a day’s swimming, however experienced a swimmer may be.

Between Kerne Bridge and Huntsham bridge there are numerous sewers and two main sewerage works emptying their effluent into the river. If these were discharging into a public swimming pool, would we swim in it? Please remember the odd decomposing dead sheep or other animal. There is also a good chance that the rat or mink ambling along the river bank could be carrying the Leptospirosis virus.

Over the past few years, the River Wye has become a major recreation place for numerous water sports that, during the warm summer months, make the only river in the country that is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, throughout its length, resemble the high street of some major city on a saturday night. I feel sure that this event will trigger further misuse of this once peaceful and tranquil river.

I would be interested in any thoughts that the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales may have, after all they are the two bodies with major control over the River Wye and its environment.

I feel sure that if I attempted to organise a sponsored bungee jump from the top of Yat Rock, the RSPB?would be up in arms about the disturbance to the nesting Peregrines.

G. Woodward

Welsh Bicknor