Maria Caulfield, Member of Parliament for Lewes, has welcomed the news that the bathing waters in the Lewes Constituency, Birling Gap and Seaford, have been rated as being Excellent quality by the Environment Agency.
The classification of over 400 bathing waters around the country are published each year by the Environment Agency. Each bathing water is given one of the following annual classifications: Excellent – the highest, cleanest class; Good – generally good water quality; Sufficient – the water meets the minimum standard; Poor – the water has not met the minimum standard.
The Environment Agency monitors the level of bacteria in the water each year during the bathing water season between May and September. Bathing water classifications give a long-term assessment of water quality over a ‘rolling’ four-year period. The classifications for 2023 are based on data from 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 with a gap in 2020 due to the pandemic impacting our monitoring and sampling activity.
This year’s bathing water results show that 96% met/exceeded minimum standards, of which nearly 90% met the highest standards of Excellent or Good and 6% achieving Sufficient. This means there has been a slight fall in standards this year, underlining the need for significant ongoing work to ensure the quality of our bathing waters increases.
Bathing water quality has improved substantially since the early 1990s when just 28% of bathing waters in England met the highest standards in force at that time. Regulation and investment over several decades have driven significant improvements to our coastal bathing waters.
Maria Caulfield MP said:
“I very much welcome that our local bathing waters have been classified with the highest rating standard, government initiatives such as our ‘Plan for Water’ will strengthen this with the Government investing around £1.6 billion to reduce sewage discharges, reduce nutrient pollution, and increase the supply of water.”