Tide turns as beach goes from crown jewel to flop in just two days

TWO days ago it was awarded a prestigious Blue Flag award by Keep Scotland Beautiful and described as one of the "crown jewels of Scotland's coastline".

But in the latest edition of the Good Beach Guide out today, St Andrews' East Sands beach in Fife has been classed as a "fail" for not meeting the minimum water quality demanded by European monitoring.

To confuse visitors to Scotland's beaches even further, both guides use the same water samples taken by Sepa, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

But the Good Beach Guide, compiled by independent charity Marine Conservation Society (MCS), concentrates on water quality alone, interpreting results to a stricter standard while the partly government-funded Keep Scotland Beautiful's Blue Flag guide gives daily monitoring and includes 32 facilities such as education activities and toilet facilities.

VisitScotland and a leading business organisation in Fife said the current conflicting guides were confusing.

On a positive note, almost half (50 out of 110) beaches in Scotland received the top "recommended" award for excellent bathing water quality in the Good Beach Guide.

Among those receiving the top awards are Portobello beach, Edinburgh, Culzean in Ayrshire and Findhorn in Moray.

Shetland has five beaches in the guide for the first time, all of which are MCS recommended for excellent water quality.

However, seven beaches failed to reach the minimum legal water quality standard compared to 13 last year. As well as St Andrews' East Sands these were: Lower Largo and Earlsferry in Fife, Lossiemouth east in Moray, Gailes in Irvine, Ayr South and Heads of Ayr in South Ayrshire.

Calum Duncan, MCS Scotland programme manager, said: "We all want the same thing - improved water quality. But we want to drive the standard up."

Helen Darvill of Keep Scotland Beautiful said: "I don't think there is any confusion between the two because if people read both they do explain fairly high up what the criteria are."

Edith Rendle of the St Andrews Merchants Association said: "It's very difficult for visitors and businesses such as bed and breakfasts in the town to have such confusing information published about our beaches.

"Most people will just look at the bottom line for which particular guide is in front of them and this is unfair on a lot of communities who are doing their best in difficult times.

"I don't see why there have to be so many different bodies doing the same thing. There has to be a simpler way."