Campaigners came together on a North Tyneside beach calling for urgent action to improve water quality.
Surfers Against Sewage organised the "non-paddle out" at Cullercoats Bay, where supporters turned up on Sunday morning in swimming, surfing, kayaking and paddling gear - but did not enter the water.
They then formed a giant heart shape on the beach, as part of a worldwide 'Show The Love' campaign aiming to protect oceans and the environment.
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Andrew Riley, regional rep for Surfers Against Sewage, said Cullercoats was the only North Tyneside beach without a Blue Flag award, which is given to sites with the best water quality standards.
Mr Riley said: "Cullercoats is the epicentre of water activities but it has poor water quality.
"We know Northumbrian Water and North Tyneside Council have been working with the Environment Agency to try and fix it but we are not seeing any change. We are not seeing any improvement."
Simon Laing, who runs Cullercoats-based CBK Adventures offering activities such as kayaking and paddleboarding, said the authorities needed to "act now" to improve the quality of water.
The 37-year-old, who started the business in 2014, said: "For the past four years, I have patiently said very little while engaging with the water company and council via meetings.
"I've given them the time and space to do what they need to do to try and resolve the problems. But four years on, we are still dealing with the same problems.
"Today's campaign is to say this can't go on indefinitely. This is water that our children are bathing in. We need action quickly.
"My business depends on the quality of this water. When we started, Cullercoats had a good water quality rating. It then went down to satisfactory and then to poor. It's been poor for four years.
"We are peaceful people and we as a community have a great commitment for the environment. We want to see changes happening."
Claire Thew, from community group Totally Tynemouth, was also at the event.
The 43-year-old, from Tynemouth, said: "Our aim is to try and bring the community together and encourage people to look after their environment.
"All North Tyneside beaches have Blue Flags except Cullercoats and that's shocking.
"Cullercoats is popular with people who want to take part in water activities. Cold water swimming has massively taken off over the past two years because of the pandemic. There are a lot of people who swim now. But the water quality here is poor and that needs to change."
North Tyneside Council and Northumbrian Water told ChronicleLive that efforts were being made to improve the quality of water at the beach.
Phil Scott, head of environment, housing and leisure at the council, said: “Since 2017, we have been working alongside Northumbrian Water and the Environment Agency, to investigate the reasons why the water quality has deteriorated at Cullercoats.
"A huge amount of work has been carried out on privately-owned sites and public spaces to try and remedy this problem and further improvements are being explored.
“Cullercoats remains a thriving and wonderful beach for locals and visitors to enjoy, with fantastic facilities in and around the beach area.
"We understand people’s concerns and we thank them for their patience, and we can assure them that we remain committed to doing all that we can to support this ongoing process until the water quality matches our aspirations, and our Blue Flag is restored.”
A spokesman from Northumbrian Water said the firm had led investigations, alongside the Environment Agency and council, into the reasons behind the water issues at Cullercoats.
They added: "These have shown no evidence of our assets being a primary cause for the deterioration in bathing water quality. Contaminated groundwater is likely to be the cause of this.
“During this period, we have made improvements to our network and also to local authority assets and corrected some private home connection issues.
"We will continue to carry out ongoing sampling, and are looking at the potential for a diversion of water from a local authority culvert into our network to have a positive effect on the water quality.”
