The Agency’s summer-season water quality monitoring at the top 484 beaches and inland bathing spots around England and Wales will start on Wednesday 1st May. For the first time, the results will be made available to the public throughout the summer on the Agency’s What’s in Your Backyard? website.
Users will be able to find information on any particular beach by searching by postcode, local authority, beach name of by water quality. As well as the up-to-date information, users will be able to see archive data in order to track water quality trends over time.
Three bathing areas are being monitored for the first time this year, increasing the number of bathing areas from 481 last year to 484 this season. These are Sea Palling in Norfolk, Trebarwith Strand at Tintagel in Cornwall, and Crackington Haven at Bude, also in Cornwall.
Last year, the quality of bathing waters reached an all time high – since monitoring began in 1988, with 467 reaching the mandatory standard set out by the European Bathing Waters Directive (see related story).