The monthly meeting of the Frome Town Matters was a busy online event, including a worrying assessment of the poor water quality of River Frome.

The first issue raised was that, now that the town centre Market Place works have been completed and the main through road is open, many vehicles seem to be speeding through.

A resident had been in touch with the former mayor to ask him how they could be reminded that there is a 20 mph speed limit through the centre of the town.

Councillors agreed to put the matter to the police and request some speed enforcement measures.

Still on the subject of the Market Place roadworks, a resident asked councillors where the shields of St Aldhelm, which were removed along with the railings on the corner of Cork Street, had gone to ?

She was reassured that they are "safely with the council". Frome Town Council is considering the possibility of them being incorporated into some public art work next year.

One other question came from Cllr John Clarke who asked whether Frome Town Council was making any application to access any money from the climate emergency fund with Somerset County Council. Councillors were reassured that they will be - and the money would be targeted on cycling initiatives.

Councillors were then given an update on the town's river from Sue Everett of the Friends of the River Frome. She is one of the 11 members who sit on the management group and as an ecologist, she has recorded that over the past eight years the river status has gone from being rated 'moderate' to today being considered 'poor'.

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Councillors heard that there were many alarming levels of dangerous chemicals in the river including mercury and a flame retardant, but an equally worrying problem came from untreated sewage being pushed into the river via sewage overflows.

She told councillors that put simply the River Frome is: " Unfit to swim or play in." And she added that there were also sewage outages at other sites around the town, revealing that raw sewage had been leaking at the top of Catherine Street and there was sewage in the culvert at The Dippy.

As part of the project the Friends of the River is considering approaching the council for some funding to take part in more sophisticated testing of sewage levels. Under a scheme of Citizen Science Monitoring they hope to get a better picture of water quality and how that impacts public health.

" I am hoping that the only way for our river is up, " she concluded.

Councillors agreed to draft a letter complaining about the specific pollution issues and send it to both the local MP David Warburton and Wessex Water. The Friends of the River Frome will also be asked to consult on the implications on the quality of the river when the Selwood Garden Village development moves ahead. That would see around 1700 homes built close to Frome which would potentially have a big impact on the capacity of the town's sewage works.

The session concluded with a question from a resident about when the River Frome might have been at its cleanest?

Sue Everett told them: " Probably forty years ago - that was when the River Frome was probably the cleanest. But that was also when Cuprinol was in the town."