The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) today reports that more than one in three of Britain’s beaches now poses a health risk for bathers because of water pollution. MCS is responding to bathing water monitoring data released today by the Department of Environment (Defra) which shows that 35% (207) of Britain’s 587 officially designated beaches failed to meet the European ‘Guideline’ standard for water quality in summer 2008. ‘Guideline’ is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) minimum standard for safeguarding bathers’ health and this is the worst result since 2001. MCS is renewing its call for an expansion of the sewer system to handle large volumes of storm water, further action to improve Britain’s combined sewer overflow network and a reduction in animal waste run-off from farm land.

Thomas Bell, MCS Coastal Pollution Officer, said: “These latest results reflect a worrying trend toward worsening pollution on Britain’s beaches. There was a high point in 2006 when 76% of beaches had good water quality, but long bouts of heavy rain last summer swept pollutants like farm fertiliser, street debris and animal waste directly from the land into rivers and the sea.

“The coast is also ringed by a network of combined sewer overflows (CSO) which discharge a mixture of storm water and raw sewage into the sea whenever the sewers flood. MCS believes that this network needs significant new investment to reduce its pollution impact, as well as new measures to tackle storm run-off from farm land and city streets.”

Summer 2008 was characterised by exceptionally wet weather in June, July and August and this high rainfall substantially increased pollution pressures around the UK coast.  MCS recognises that discharges from CSO and storm water outfalls are necessary to avoid sewage flooding people’s homes, and that storm run-off from farm land is an entrenched and difficult problem. However, bathers are put at risk because beaches with normally excellent water quality can be temporarily affected by CSO discharges and storm run-off and people may enter the sea in ignorance of this fact.

Thomas Bell continued: ‘Not all beaches are affected by this problem. The results show good standards on roughly two thirds of beaches, but coastal pollution has worsened markedly from a high point three summers ago and the problem for swimmers is knowing which beaches have suffered and when.”