Figures released today by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that this year, 605 out 610 bathing sites met the mandatory standards set by the European Commission.

Defra has released the statistics on UK coastal bathing waters which set out a five year summary of compliance with mandatory and UK guidelines.

Headline results show that in 2014, out of the 610 bathing sites measured 605 (99.2 per cent) met the mandatory (basic) standards of the European Bathing Water Directive in the UK. In 2014, 78.2 per cent of UK coastal bathing waters met the more stringent guideline standards of the Bathing Water Directive.

The results in 2014 and 2013 show a reversal of the dip in 2012, which reflected the extreme wet weather conditions during that summer. England saw peak compliance of almost 100 per cent this summer. In 2012 94.3 per cent of coastal bathing waters met the mandatory standard.

In 2014, all 15 inland bathing waters in the UK met the mandatory (minimum) standards of the European Bathing Water Directive and 40 per cent met the more stringent guideline standards of the Bathing Water Directive.

Nine inland sites in England were designated as bathing waters in 1998 and two were designated in Scotland in 1999. Since then, there have been four further designations: one in Scotland, in 2008; two in England, in 2013 and 2014; and one in Wales, in 2014.

Variations in water quality from year to year may be related to weather conditions, as inland waters can be affected by run-off from surrounding urban or agricultural land. Inland bathing waters may be affected by phytoplankton blooms, which are not harmful, or in some cases by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which is toxic.

Bathing water quality has improved steadily since 1988, largely as a result of improvements to the sewerage system by water companies. Variations from year to year tend now to be related to weather conditions, as combined sewer overflows operate more frequently during wet weather, diffuse pollution from urban and agricultural sources is increased, and in poor summers there is less sunlight to kill off bacteria in water.

The EC Bathing Water Directive sets mandatory and more stringent guideline standards with tighter limit values. During the transition period the E.coli is used to assess mandatory standard, with a limit value of 2000 per 100ml. At least 95 per cent of samples must meet the limit value. Guideline standard is assessed on monitoring for intestinal enterococci, with a limit value of 100 per 100ml in at least 80 per cent of samples.

The UK is currently in a transition period as it moves from the original to the revised Directive. Bathing water quality is now monitored using the new parameters of E.coli and intestinal enterococci and the data is used to assess compliance with the standards set by Directive 76/160//EEC. At the same time, it will be used in the four year data set that will provide the first set of classifications under Directive 2006/7/EC in 2015. There is now a single guideline standard which is comparable to the previous UK Guideline standard.

In 2011 Northumbrian Water was the first water company to have more than 90% of its bathing waters pass the stringent Guideline measure. The latest figures show that thirty one of the region’s 34 bathing waters have met the highest European water quality standard, known as ‘Guideline’. The firm is now planning to invest more than £2 million to carry out investigation work to understand how bathing water quality can be improved at various locations including those which have achieved the mandatory standard this year.