The government has welcomed the Office for Environmental Protection’s (OEP) review of the implementation of the current Bathing Water Regulations 2013 in England, saying that the OEP recommendations are aligned with the government’s proposed reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. The OEP published its review in November 2024.

The OEP review looked at the effectiveness of the Bathing Water Regulations as a legal instrument, their application in practice and their coherence with wider law and policy. The OEP assessed whether the Regulations are positioned to achieve their aim of improving bathing water quality to protect human health and to facilitate recreational water use.

The Government response says the OEP’s prominent conclusion is that Defra and the Environment Agency are implementing the Regulations effectively in terms of compliance with bathing water monitoring, classification and reporting.

However, the response also acknowledges there is scope to update and improve the Regulations to reflect changes to the public’s recreational use of water beyond bathing and the public’s expectations of bathing water quality.

In its review, there are 12 OEP recommendations for Defra and the Environment Agency to consider. The recommendations relate to the current implementation of the Regulations, their design, and coherence with related law and policy

The government’s response says that the OEP recommendations are aligned with the government’s proposed reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013, commenting:

“Many of the recommendations suggested relating to regulatory reforms have been captured in our recent consultation. This highlights that reforms considered by government are broadly in line with what the OEP recommend is needed to improve the bathing waters system for the public.”

The government’s recent consultation on the Bathing Water Regulations, which closed on 23^rd December 2024, sought views on whether a wider range of water users should be considered beyond just swimmers. It also explored what categories of other users should be included and how their needs can be balanced against current users. The intention is to make the Regulations better reflect contemporary usage of waters by considering activities such as rowing, surfing, kayaking and paddleboarding amongst others.

The government response to the OEP recommendations include:

• OEP recommendation 2 to remove dates of the fixed bathing water season (May to September) - corresponds with government’s Core Reform 3.
• OEP Recommendation 5 to include a pre-identification step in designating new bathing waters) - in line with government’s Core Reform 2.
• OEP Recommendations 7a to take a more flexible approach to determining the most representative sampling locations) and 7b introduce multiple testing points on long stretches of bathing water sites - corresponds with government’s Wider Reform 2.
• OEP Recommendation 11 to revisit the approach to automatic declassification of bathing water sites - corresponds with government’s proposed Core Reform 1.

The government response also flags up a number of the OEP recommendations that are in fact existing government practice which are already considered in government’s management of the bathing water system and implementation of the Regulations.

This includes the OEP Recommendation suggesting that where applications are rejected, Defra should provide a statement of the reasons for the rejection as a matter of routine in the interests of transparency and good governance. The response says Defra alreaded practices these processes and reasons for successful or unsuccessful applications are provided to applicants , apart from a period in 2023 when the government was unable to provide information which led to applications being unsuccessful. “However we will endeavour to provide this information to any future applicants,” the response says.

The OEP Recommendation 7c suggested that government develops proposals for the consistent monitoring of and response to, cyanobacterial blooms at bathing water sites. The response says this is currently practiced during each site visit made by the Environment Agency and water samplers check for the presence of blooms. If these are observed, then the local authority is notified and will take action to prevent bathers’ exposure if they consider this to be necessary.

Commenting on OEP Recommendation 9 suggesting that Defra and the Environment Agency consider options to increase people’s ability to access real time information on bathing water quality, the response says:

“Bathing water quality data from sampling designated sites in England is assessed by the Environment Agency. From May to September, daily pollution risk forecasts (PRFs) are issued on the Environment Agency’s web platform (Swimfo) where the public can look up details of a designated bathing water by name or location. The Environment Agency is currently considering upgrades to Swimfo to make it more user-friendly for the public.”

The response also comments on OEP recommendations which are outside the scope of government’s proposed reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 or are not currently existing practice.

“The remainder of the recommendations made by the OEP’s report are outside of the scope of the current consultation on proposed reforms to the Regulations or are not currently existing practices...

“We respond to each of these ...and highlight where we may consider these in future,” the response says.

Next steps

The government has welcomed the recommendations made by the OEP throughout its report - the response outlines where these may be considered in future. The ggovernment’s separate response to the consultation on proposed reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 will be published in due course and will set out next steps on potential reforms to the bathing water system.

Click here to download Government response to the Office for Environmental Protection’s review of implementation of the Bathing Water Regulations in England