Will Andy Act? Another child ill after swimming in Windermere

Earlier this year, we told the horrific story of Rex, a young boy who almost died after spending time on Windermere with his family last summer. After contracting E. coli O157, Rex suffered temporary kidney damage, required an operation, dialysis and multiple blood transfusions, and ultimately spent six weeks in hospital.

Rex in hospital following E.coli infection last summer

When we told Rex's story, it wasn't simply to expose what had happened to one family. It was to warn the Government that they needed to clean up Windermere.

We warned that, without intervention, somebody else could become seriously ill.

This summer, another young child has.

Iris's story

On 2 July 2026, three-year-old Iris was on holiday with her family in the Lake District when they visited Windermere. Her mother, Samantha Southwell, has described how the family felt reassured about allowing Iris to paddle at the water's edge because other parents and children were already gathered there.

Two days later, Iris became seriously unwell, suffering severe sickness and diarrhoea and developing a high temperature. Samantha took her for an emergency appointment with their family GP, where a stool sample confirmed that Iris had contracted a Campylobacter infection.

When the GP began trying to establish where the infection might have come from, she asked where the family had been and what they had eaten. After learning that Iris had recently been paddling in Windermere, the GP said she believed contamination in the lake was the likely source of the infection. Iris was initially considered for further tests in hospital but, thankfully, began showing signs of improvement and has since made a full recovery.

We now have two families, in two consecutive summers, whose children have contracted serious bacterial infections shortly after recreational contact with Windermere and whose families say medical professionals identified exposure to England’s largest lake as the likely source.

Earlier this year, after telling Rex's story, we warned the Government that this could happen again.

We met with the then Secretary of State and explained that there were immediate measures the Government could take to better protect people entering the water before the summer holidays.

Those measures were not implemented. Now another child has become seriously ill.

We outlined very clearly the problem with bathing water monitoring on Windermere. The lake is approximately 10.5 miles long and people enter the water at locations all around it, yet official bathing water monitoring takes place at only a small number of designated sites. As we have outlined in our reports, the current system is not capable of providing a complete picture of water quality across a lake of this scale and complexity.

This matters because the public are told that Windermere's designated bathing waters are classified as ‘Excellent’ and understandably interpret that as meaning the water is safe. In reality, the classification assesses just two bacterial indicators (neither of which was responsible for Iris's illness) at specific locations and times. It cannot provide a guarantee about the condition of the water where and when somebody actually enters it.

After Rex became critically ill, we didn't simply highlight this failure. We took a package of measures to Government that could begin to be implemented within six months.

We asked for Windermere to become a national pilot for enhanced freshwater monitoring, with more monitoring locations and more frequent testing. We proposed pollution risk forecasting, bringing together rainfall, wastewater performance, monitoring results, temperature and environmental conditions to identify periods of increased risk, building on approaches the Environment Agency already uses at some coastal bathing waters.

We also called for a single, accessible system providing up-to-date information about bathing water results, pollution risks, wastewater discharges, blue-green algae, pollution incidents and public health advice, available both online and around the shoreline. Finally, we suggested that monitoring should also be expanded beyond the existing bacterial indicators to better reflect the risks associated with a complex freshwater lake, including potentially toxic blue-green algae.

These are not measures that require billions of pounds of new infrastructure or decades to deliver. They are practical interventions designed to give people better information about the water they and their children are entering.

The Government did not act.

Windermere is now a test for the new Prime Minister

Andy Burnham has said he is “angry” that people have been asked to pay more while serious pollution incidents remain at record levels. If he is serious about changing the way our lakes, rivers and seas have been treated, Windermere should be the litmus test of his leadership.

I invite him to come to Windermere and meet us, but more importantly, to meet the families affected. Meet Samantha and hear what happened after her three-year-old daughter paddled at Bowness. Meet Claire and hear what it was like to watch Rex spend six weeks in hospital after a family kayaking trip.

Then look at the measures we have already put to Government and tell us what is going to change.

Earlier this year, we warned that another person could become seriously ill if the Government failed to intervene. That warning was not made for dramatic effect. It was made because people are entering Windermere every day. Yet the system intended to inform them about water quality provides only a limited picture of the risks they may face.

The Government cannot continue to bury its head in the sand. It needs to introduce immediate measures to better protect the public while expediting the removal of sewage from Windermere altogether.

We warned that this could happen again. The Government now needs to act before another child becomes seriously ill, or something even worse happens.

You can contact Number 10 here https://contact.no10.gov.uk and tell Andy what you think of this latest story from Windermere.