Sussex Beaches Get Thumbs Up

Every single beach in Sussex has been given the seal of approval for their water quality.

And 18 of the county’s beaches have received the highest possible rating for clean water from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

The Good Beach Guide shows that every beach in Sussex met the legal requirement for clean water, but comes just days after the Environment Agency said on more than 3,000 occasions last year Southern Water had allowed sewage overflow pipes to leak into the sea off the Sussex coast.

The latest ratings, released today, showed that several beaches had improved since last year including Hove, Southwick, Eastbourne, Littlehampton and Bognor, Pevensey Bay, Pagham and Felpham near Bognor and Winchelsea near Hastings.

However the beaches in Worthing, Bognor East, Middleton in Bognor and Norman’s Bay near Bexhill, all dropped from a “recommended” rating last year to just a basic pass this year.

The MCS warned that beaches with pass ratings this year might fail when stricter bathing water standards are introduced in 2015 unless improvements are made. Clean water campaigners blamed the sewage overflows for the drop in water quality.

Three out of four sections of the coastline in Brighton and Hove were graded as “recommended” by the MCS, meaning the water quality is of the highest standard.

The central section of Brighton beach, between the piers, Hove beach and Hove West all scored the highest rating. However the Kemp Town stretch of beach only scored a basic pass.

^{story source : The Argus 28|05|20}

This entry was posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 12:14 pm. It is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.