Number of beaches with water safe to swim in falls

THE number of Scottish beaches where the water classified as safe to swim in has fallen due to 
increasing levels of pollution.

Consistent rainfall and flooding led to an increase in the amount of bacteria and viruses ending up in Scotland’s bathing waters, according to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). As a result, the number of Scottish beaches with excellent water quality in the updated MCS Good Beach Guide has fallen once again and is now well below the UK average.

Only 42 of the 109 Scottish bathing beaches tested in 2013 have been graded as having excellent water quality.

This represents a fall from 2012, when 45 beaches made the excellent grade, and from 50 in 2011 – a trend which has been consistent over the past decade.

The MCS has warned that yet another drop in the quality of bathing water highlights stalled progress in the way the Scottish Government, Scottish Water and councils are working toward making the country’s seas safer for swimmers.

Pollution can originate from a variety of sources such as agricultural run-off, storm waters, misconnected plumbing, septic tanks and dog faeces.

MCS Scotland Programme Manager, Calum Duncan, said: “Action must be taken now. With stricter bathing-water standards from 2015 and summers that appear to be getting wetter, the iconic image of people bathing off golden beaches could be at serious risk. These latest figures must be a wake-up call to the Scottish Government, to Scottish Water and to local authorities.”

The figures reveal that four of Scotland’s beaches failed to meet even a minimum European Standard, or equivalent, for bathing-water quality.

However, many of Scotland’s more remote beaches are not tested for water quality due to the low number of bathers, and so their water quality is not accounted for in the guide.

Scotland was not the only part of the UK to suffer from poor bathing-water quality due to the wet summer in 2012, as every region of the UK has had fewer beaches recommended.

Andy Cummins, campaigns director of Surfers Against Sewage, said: “I get incredibly frustrated with the heavy rain excuse, because if we’re labelling it as heavy rain, then no one can control the rain that we’ve got.

“However, we understand the weather we’re presented with in the summer and we need a sewage system that can cope with that and protect the bathing waters so people can enjoy their time at the beach without concerning themselves with gastroenteritis.”