Not so good Bexhill beach guide

According the the 2009 Good Beach Guide, (GBG), which contains a list of Britain's beaches that the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), 'recommends for excellent water quality, and well-treated local sewerage discharge (if any)', Bexhill beach, which received a 'Basic Pass' in 2008, initially failed to receive a pass at all for 2009, and was considered by the MCS to be one of Britain's ten most polluted beaches.

This decision lead to a statement being issued by a press officer from Southern Water which said:

"We are disappointed that the Marine Conservation Society has rated Bexhill as a failed beach. We use official results from Defra (the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) and the Environment Agency, which both rated Bexhill as a pass (or Good) in tests conducted in 2008. In fact, every beach in Sussex met European standards for bathing water quality. These results can be seen on Defra and the EA's websites."

However, within the past couple of days, having received new information from the Environment Agency, the MCS plans to upgrade the beach and award it a 'Basic Pass'.'

In a statement dated June 2nd 2009, Thomas Bell, Coastal Pollution officer with the MCS said :

"We graded Bexhill as 'fail' based on water quality tests conducted by the Environment Agency from May to September last year (the latest water quality data available). The water quality at Bexhill through last summer was periodically poor in MCS's opinion, and the sample taken on 9th July failed minimum statutory standards.

"The beach was also granted an Abnormal Weather Waiver by the Environment Agency. This is a statutory device used to discount the results from water quality samples taken during periods of exceptionally severe weather. These water quality samples invariably fail minimum statutory standards and MCS doesn't recognise the Abnormal Weather Waiver derogation on the basis that there's no statutory requirement for the beach operator to the tell the bathing public when this sort of pollution event has occurred."

He added: "Taking the 9th July failure and the weather waiver together, MCS concluded unfortunately that Bexhill had for the purposes of our guide failed for the season. We do, of course, always look very seriously at appeals made against our grades but we haven't to date seen any evidence to over-turn the result for Bexhill."

However, a new dataset, received by the MCS on June 9th 2009, could ultimately overturn this decision and produce a different, more favourable result for Bexhill.

Mr Bell said:

"Further to my email of 2nd June, the Environment Agency via Defra has now sent MCS a new water quality dataset which contains all the water quality tests taken at Bexhill last summer, including the test previously excluded on the basis of this Abnormal Weather Waiver derogation. An Abnormal Weather Waiver was applied at Bexhill on the 27th May last year but a water quality sample taken on that day would not have failed statutory standards.

"This begs the question why a Weather Waiver was applied and the test excluded from the dataset given to us, to which I am afraid I don't know the answer. However, if MCS includes this new test result of 27th May 2008 in our analysis for Bexhill then the beach can be uprated from Fail to Basic Pass in the Good Beach Guide 2009."

This result may, on the face of it, appear to be better news for the area, and despite the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency, both rating Bexhill as 'Good' or a 'Pass' in tests they conducted in 2008, Mr Bell said the MCS would still like to see greater improvements in the water quality.

He said:

"This improved grade for Bexhill is better news but our opinion of water quality on the beach remains that it was periodically poor last summer. It still holds that the sample taken on 9th July failed minimum statutory standards.

"It's also worth pointing out that a Basic Pass in the Good Beach Guide '“ one step up from a fail '“ is still not a great result. Beaches with a Basic Pass achieved the statutory minimum water quality standard but this still offers bathers on average, a one in seven chance per swim of contracting a water-borne illness. New statutory standards will replace the Basic Pass from 2015 but from MCS's point of view it's the beaches we recommend that still offer bathers the greatest security from pollution problems.

"MCS has been campaigning for better water quality around Britain's coast for over twenty years. We are deeply mindful of the impact a low grade in the Good Beach Guide is likely to have on a local beach economy, but our first questions with a bad result are always why did this happen and what can we do to help sort out the pollution problem? The grading should be a trigger for remedial action.

"There were clearly periodic bathing water problems at Bexhill last summer, as there were around much of Britain's coast, and this is very likely to have been the result of storm pollution running into the sea. People visiting the Good Beach Guide website this summer can report on-going problems to us and we will use this information to take action with the water company, the Environment Agency or whomsoever's in a position to fix the problem."

Mr Bell concluded: "MCS is beholden to the Environment Agency for water quality data and their decision to release new information to us now has caused some difficulty. We take the Good Beach Guide grading process extremely seriously and where new information becomes available we will act."

For further information visit the website at: www.goodbeachguide.co.uk