Better bathing off town beaches
Thursday 3rd May 2012Two beaches in Great Yarmouth and the one in Gorleston have been upgraded for the quality of their bathing water in this year’s Good Beach Guide.
Gorleston and Great Yarmouth’s south and pier beaches now join Great Yarmouth north in being recommended by the guide for the high quality of the water. The three had previously achieved only the minimum mandatory level of water cleanliness.
Other recommended beaches in the immediate area include Lowestoft, north and south of Claremont Pier, Caister Point, Hemsby and Sea Palling.
But the Denes and the Pier beaches in Southwold are no longer recommended and have dropped to mandatory level.
Across the country a record number of beaches have been given the top award for water quality in the latest Marine Conservation Society (MCS) guide.
However, 25 beaches failed to achieve even the mandatory levels of water cleanliness.
The MCS also warned the kind of heavy rains which have hit in the past week are bad news for the country’s beaches, washing raw sewage from overflow pipes and pollution from towns and rural areas to bathing areas.
The group’s latest guide reveals areas which are not successfully tackling poor water quality, with four beaches at Blackpool and nearby St Anne’s among those once again failing to reach mandatory levels for clean water.
With the first measurements being taken this summer under new, more stringent European Union water quality rules to be introduced in 2015, the MCS is warning against complacency over improving standards. The conservation society is concerned that some of them are discharging untreated sewage dozens or even hundreds of times a year, far in excess of guideline levels.
