Molly Fletcher who is leading the campaign to lift the swimming ban at Bury Lake, wrote:
For many years Bury Lake at Rickmansworth was an extremely popular swimming lake due in part to Rickmansworth being the last stop on the Metropolitan tube line. Our family has been swimming there for fifty-odd years. There used to be a diving-board, changing facilities, showers etc. But after a fatality ‘No Swimming’ notices were posted by Hertfordshire Council over ten years ago. Since then the lake has been given over to sailing, wind surfing, canoeing and a model-yacht club.

Bury Lake is the first traditional inland water bathing site which we will be fighting to re-open. Molly, who has been swimming in the lake since the age of three, launched the campaign in an interview published in the Watford Observer on the 13th May 2005 [Click here]. Responding to Molly’s request for the Three Rivers District Council to re-open the lake to bathers, a Council spokesman claimed that the lake was closed to swimming some 25 years ago because of the presence of blue-Green algae. Other than that, the Council had no objection to people swimming there.

It is interesting to note that water skiing and wind surfing are officially permitted in the lake regardless of the risk of exposure to the algae.

The blue-green algae argument is not new. In fact it is very often used to justify swimming bans alongside the familiar ‘deep cold water’, ‘cold springs in the middle of the lake’ and Weil’s disease. Those interested in detailed information on the subject are invited to visit the Environment Agency page and its links to the World Health Organisation site. [Click here]

Compared with other dangers associated with swimming, blue-green algae is a minor one. The risk is high only in contact with visible scum – normally through digestion. Anyone even remotely considering drinking the stuff is probably just as capable of drinking bathroom bleach at home.

If algae is really what bothers the Council we would recommend replacing the ‘No Swimming’ signs with the standard notices provided by the Environment Agency which give the facts and warns people to keep well clear of the scum. As with all risks associated with recreational activities, information is very welcome. Dictation is not.

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