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Good Beach Guide

Key Trends

  • 62% of beaches in the South West are recommended in the Marine Conservation Society's Good Beach Guide.
  • There was a 5 percentage point increase in the number of Good Beach Guide recommendations in the UK in 2010 in comparison to 2009.  
  • The number of recommendations in the South West increased from 62% in 2009, to 66% in 2010.

Background

The Good Beach Guide is published by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) - the UK charity dedicated to the protection of our seas, shores and wildlife. It is the biggest and best beach guide available with a description, photo and map for each of 1,200 beaches in the UK and Ireland.

‘MCS Recommended’ is one of five UK beach awards, but is the only scheme that focuses entirely on water quality standards and the risk of sewage pollution. MCS will only recommend beaches in the Good Beach Guide if they are better than the Guideline European water quality standard and are not affected by inadequately treated continuous sewage discharge.

South West trends

Results for the 2010 Good Beach Guide showed a 13% drop in the number of UK bathing beaches recommended for excellent water quality, when in comparison to the results of the high in 2007.

In total, 421 (54.7%) UK beaches are ‘MCS Recommended’ this year out of 769 tested, compared to 388 (50.1%) last year. This is still down on the 2007 peak of 62.8% ‘MCS Recommended’.

Bathing water tests are conducted from May to September 2009.

Good Beach Guide recommendations

UK region 

Number of beaches sampled 

 

Number of beaches recommended by the MCS 

 

 

Number of beaches failing 

 

 

 2010

2009 

 2010

2009

% change

2010

 2009

 Scotland

105

109

39

41

-0.5% 

13

 17 

 Wales

169

181

94

92

4.8% 

10

20

 Channel Islands

29 

 29

 18

 11

24.1%

2

1

 Northern Ireland

24

 23

 8

 7

 2.9%

2

1

 Isles of Man

19

 18

 1

 1

 -0.3%

5

3

 England total

 423

 415

 261

 236

 4.8%

9

24

 South West

193

 195

127

 121

 3.7%

5

12

 South East

129

 124

84

 75

 4.6%

0

1

 North East

63

 63

 45

34 

 17.4%

0

5

 North West

38

33

5

6

 -7.5%

4

 UK total

769

775

421

388

4.6%

41

66

 

‘MCS Recommended’ is one of five UK beach awards, but is the only scheme that focuses entirely on water quality standards and the risk of sewage pollution. MCS will only recommend beaches in the Good Beach Guide if they are better than the Guideline European water quality standard and are not affected by inadequately treated continuous sewage discharge.

South West results 2010

66% of beaches in the South West are Marine Conservation Society Recommended – 127 out of 193 tested - whilst 5 beaches failed the legal minimum water quality standard.

The South West is still the guide’s top performing region for the fifth year in succession.

From 2007-2009, the summer months were the wettest period since 1914 in terms of rainfall quantities. The higher rainfall has increased pollution from combined sewer overflows and washed pollutants like fertilisers, livestock waste, and urban debris from land, into rivers and the sea.

Initiatives helping with these issues include catchment sensitive farming (CSF). The revised Bathing Water Directive will drive improvements in water quality as the standards are more stringent than those in the current directive.

Within the region, Cornwall had the largest number of recommended beaches, closely followed by Dorset and Devon:

 

South West Good Beach Guide recommendations

 County

Number of Good Beach Guide recommendations 2010 

 Cornwall

 56

 Devon

 33

 Dorset

 35

 Somerset

 3

 South West total

 127

Full details of all recommended beaches in the South West can be found here.

Warmer, wetter winters and summers which contain violent storms and flash floods are forecast to be a consequence of climate change and will substantially increase coastal pollution pressures.

Bathing waters need to be clean enough for people to swim in. It's the Environment Agency's job to monitor and assess the water quality of bathing waters in England and Wales to ensure they are fit for purpose.  See our page on Bathing Water Quality.

What's new on this page

2010 Good Beach Guide Results