The Environment Agency has started its annual water quality tests at England’s beaches.
Over 400 beaches and inland bathing sites are tested every week between May and September. The Agency said improvements this year will help more beaches to pass new water quality standards.
Next year England will have water quality targets that are almost twice as stringent - work over the last two decades to prevent pollution ending up in the sea mean 9 out of 10 English beaches are already meeting the standard.
However, while over 90 percent are predicted to pass, around 40 beaches along the English coast are currently at risk of failure. The new EU law means that local authorities would need to display a sign advising against swimming for those that do not pass the new standard.
Some pollution still remains, due to agriculture, sewage overflows, animal and bird faeces at beaches and households and businesses with badly connected drainage.
In some areas of the country as many as 1 in 5 homes have their drains misconnected, meaning sewage is unintentionally being flushed into rivers and ending up on beaches. Water companies, local authorities and the Environment Agency are working to repair misconnected drains.
Paul Hickey, Deputy Director of Water Quality at the Environment Agency said:
“The seaside economy in England is worth around £3.6 bn each year – and every improvement in bathing water quality helps to protect that. With one year to go until the new EU standards come into effect, the Environment Agency and partner organisations are focusing efforts on the small number of problem sites to bring them up to standard.”
“Meeting tough new water quality targets has been a huge challenge, and local authorities, water companies, farmers, homeowners and businesses all have important parts to play in protecting and improving bathing water quality at the remaining beaches that are not yet up to scratch.”
The Environment Agency is also continuing to work with the water companies to improve the treatment and handling of sewage from sewage treatment works and storm discharges. This includes the fitting of monitors to combined storm sewage overflows (CSO) which will gather data on how often they discharge. Surfers Against Sewage have a CSO alert system, organised in partnership with water companies, that alerts the user when a discharge is taking place at a particular beach. This is available on www.sas.org.uk/map/ .
Environment Agency water quality sampling teams will be out taking a total of 8,400 samples at over 400 bathing sites between now and September.
With the UK government demanding a 50% reduction in storm overflow spills by 2029, the era of reactive management is over. Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 July 2025, then environment secretary Steve Reed said, “This Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade.”
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