With summer nearly here, people will be looking for a refreshing dip in the country's beaches, rivers and lakes.

In England, there are 424 locations that have been designated as official bathing spots by the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

While the majority of them are okay to swim in, there are 16 that the Environment Agency urge people to avoid, with one of these being in Oxfordshire.

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In order to ensure that they are safe for the public to use, the Environment Agency regularly check the water quality.

But the Oxfordshire site that doesn't meet the Environment Agency's standards is Wolvercote Mill Stream, with its water quality being rated poor.

This is despite last April, Wolvercote Mill Stream becoming the only the second inland river in the UK to achieve Designated Bathing Water Status.  

The stream was monitored from May to September after it was given the designated bathing.

The popular swimming, which is located north of Port Meadow, is just one mile from Oxford city centre and is used by many people during the warmer months.

Wolvercote Mill Stream is a bifurcation of the River Thames that splits from the main channel above King's Lock, re-joining below Godstow Lock.

Access to the swimming area is via a sloping bank, which is adjacent to the Wolvercote car park.

A previous Thames Water statement said: “As a member of the Oxford Rivers Project, who made the application for designated bathing water status at Wolvercote Mill Stream, we’ll continue to work with our partners to understand what more needs to be done to ensure consistently good water quality in the Thames.

"We are absolutely committed to protecting and enhancing our rivers and the communities who love them, and we want to make these discharges of diluted sewage unnecessary as quickly as possible. 

“We are the first company to provide alerts for inland waters and this ‘near real-time’ data is available to customers as a map on our website.

"We want to lead the way with this transparent approach to data and the alerts will be available through an open data platform for third parties, such as swimming and environmental groups, to use.

“Of course, what matters most is stopping the need for the discharges.  Our shareholders have recently approved a business plan that sees us spending an additional £2billion beyond what our customers are funding so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health. 

"This will allow us to deliver our commitment to a 50 per cent reduction in the total annual duration of discharges across London and the Thames Valley by 2030, and within that an 80 per cent reduction in sensitive catchments.”