This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
    • Politics
    • Transport
    • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Business
    • Crime
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Education
    • Sport
    • Harrogate
    • Ripon
    • Knaresborough
    • Boroughbridge
    • Pateley Bridge
    • Masham
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Newsletter
  • Podcasts

Interested in advertising with us?

Advertise with us

  • News & Features
  • Your Area
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Newsletter
  • Podcasts
  • Politics
  • Transport
  • Lifestyle
  • Community
  • Business
  • Crime
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Education
  • Sport
Advertise with us
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Latest News

We want to hear from you

Tell us your opinions and views on what we cover

Contact us
Connect with us
  • About us
  • Advertise your job
  • Correction and complaints
Download on App StoreDownload on Google Play Store
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Statement
  • Comments Participation T&Cs
Trust In Journalism

Copyright © 2020 The Stray Ferret Ltd, All Rights Reserved

Site by Show + Tell

Subscribe to trusted local news

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

  • Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.

Already a subscriber? Log in here.

25

Apr 2023

Last Updated: 25/04/2023
Environment
Environment

Swimmers take to Swinsty reservoir as part of mass trespass

by John Plummer

| 25 Apr, 2023
Comment

0

dscf6332230423swinstywildswim-1
April 2023

Bathers took to Swinsty reservoir on Sunday as part of a mass trespass aimed at promoting the right to swim in UK open waters.

It is illegal to swim in Yorkshire Water-owned reservoirs, including Swinsty.

The company and North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service issued a joint plea on Friday urging people not to enter reservoirs on safety grounds.

Yorkshire Water estimates 277 accidental drownings occurred in 2021, of which five were in North Yorkshire. Eighty-two percent of the 277 fatalities occurred inland, at reservoirs, lakes and rivers.

Ramblers take part in an annual gathering at Kinder in Derbyshire to mark the 1932 protest that established the right to roam.

But swimmers have taken to the United Utilities-owned Kinder reservoir to exercise “the uncontested right to swim in open water” as part of the protest in the last three years following the boom in wild swimming

Swinsty right to swim

Swinsty on Sunday. Pic: Len Downes 



Sunday's gathering at Swinsty in the Washburn Valley took place on the same day as the Kinder trespass.

Kate Rew, founder of the Outdoor Swimming Society, told the Stray Ferret:

"We were there and we communicated to our members about it — but no one organised it, it was a happening."


Swinsty right to swim

Pic: Len Downes



Alastair Harvey, lead countryside and woodland advisor at Yorkshire Water, said last week: 

“It is vital those visiting our sites stay out of the water, no matter how tempting it may appear. Cold water shock, undercurrents and operating machinery all pose dangers to people deciding to enter the water."


North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said in a statement:

“Reservoirs can be extremely dangerous and swimming in them can soon become serious, or even fatal – even if you are a strong swimmer."






Read more:



  • Reservoir swimming warning amid planned 'mass swim' at Swinsty

  • Swinsty and Fewston parking charges to include 'season ticket'