Cambridgeshire's Sheep's Green fails water quality testing and rated 'poor'
Around one in 12 of England's official swimming spots along coasts, lakes and rivers are failing to meet water quality standards.
Around one in 12 of England's official swimming spots along coasts, lakes and rivers are failing to meet water quality standards, figures have revealed.
The number of English bathing waters rated poor jumped to record levels as two thirds of the 27 sites newly designated in 2024, many of them rivers struggling with pollution, were branded as "failing" in the official assessment.
© in Cambridgeshire failed water quality testing and has been rated as 'poor'.
The Environment Agency's monitoring of designated bathing waters during the official swimming season between May and September shows that overall, 8.2% of bathing waters - some 37 sites - were rated "poor" for water quality in 2024.
Out of 450 bathing waters regularly tested for harmful bacteria, 91.8% met at least the minimum standards for clean water while 64.2% reached "excellent" standards, the figures show.
They also revealed a big disparity in water quality between coastal bathing waters, where 95% met the minimum standards, and inland waters such as rivers, where only half (53%) were classed as sufficient or better.
Water Minister Emma Hardy said the figures were "unacceptable" and Environment Agency chairman Alan Lovell said they showed there was still much work to do to tackle pollution, while campaigners called for an overhaul of the system.
This year's results cover the period 2021 to 2024, with testing for harmful bacteria undertaken through the designated swimming season and the readings for the last four years used to determine the annual classification of each site as excellent, good, sufficient or poor.
The proportion of sites failing to meet minimum standards in water quality and being rated as poor as a result has nearly doubled from 4.3% last year, and is the highest since the current rating system was introduced in 2015, while the percentage of "good" and "excellent" sites has fallen slightly.
Officials said this is in part due to the existing water quality of 27 new bathing sites designated at the start of the season, which have previously not been managed for bathing before and 18 of which were rated poor in their first year of testing.
Many of these new sites failing to make the grade are river waters, which campaigners say highlights how much pollution is being pumped into rivers and estuaries.
The figures come amid a consultation on a shake-up of the system, including removing the fixed summer "season" to account for the rising trend in cold water swimming, expanding the definition of "bathers" to cover other water users such as surfers, and testing at multiple points of a site.
It forms part of Government efforts to address widespread public anger over the polluted state of England's rivers, lakes and seas, including designated inland and coastal bathing spots.