The public has been warned to avoid a popular Pembrokeshire beach following a raw sewage leak.

The charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) issued the alert as sewage leaks worsen amid heavy rainfall in recent days.

The sewage has leaked from major works and pipelines, seeing waste discharged into the sea.

An alerts has been issued for Newport Beach where SAS storm sewage has been discharged from a sewer overflow in this location within the past 48 hours.

The beach is serviced by a relatively new sewage treatment works that usually discharges biologically treated sewage effluent via the long sea outfall, some 700m from the coast into Newport Bay.

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Newport Beach is popular with locals and visitors alike and is favoured by dog walkers, families and swimmers. It has a 4.5 star rating on Trip Advisor.

Newport is the only Welsh beach currently under a pollution alert. However, there is no data currently available for Poppit near Cardigan and Traeth Gwyn in New Quay.

Massive rise in the amount of sewage leaked into waterways since 2016 Sewage in the country's waterways has been a point of contention in recent years with a huge increase in the amount of raw sewage being discharged.

Sky News reported that there had been a 2,553% rise in raw sewage leaks over the last five years.

Between 2016 and 2021 water companies discharged raw sewage into the waterways and sea for almost 10 million hours, the equivalent of 1,076 years.

A real-time interactive map of the beaches contaminated by sewage can be found on the Surfers Against Sewage website, linked above.

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