Bathing Water (Hansard, 17 November 1994)

§ Mr. Atkins

The monitoring carried out during the 1994 season shows that 82 per cent. of the 457 identified bathing waters in the United Kingdom met the mandatory coliform bacteria standards of the EC bathing water directive. This compares with 80 per cent. in 1993 and 79 per cent. in 1992.

During the season, over 97 per cent. of the 18,000 coliform samples were within, and in most cases well within, the required standards.

It is encouraging to see that the continuing improvement in the overall standard of our bathing waters is being maintained. I look forward to further increases in compliance in the near future as more and more schemes in the bathing water improvement programme begin to have an effect. Although we still have some way to go, it is especially encouraging that some waters which have repeatedly failed year on year have this season for the first time achieved the EC standards.

The main results for the United Kingdom are summarised as follows with details for English and Welsh bathing waters. This information will be placed in the Library of the House today and will be supplemented by a report with more detailed results in due course.

Bathing Waters Survey-1994 Results for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (Compliance with Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC): Coliform Standards).
	Pass	Fail	Total
England and Wales NRA Regions
Northumbrian¹	29(25)	5(9)	34(34)
Yorkshire¹	20(21)	2(1)	22(22)
Anglian	27(28)	6(5)	33(33)
Thames	2(3)	1(0)	3(3)
Southern	53(58)	14(9)	67(67)
Wessex¹	40(35)	2(7)	42(42)
South West¹	111(107)	22(26)	133(133)
North West	24(13)	9(20)	33(33)
Welsh	39(42)	12(9)	51(51)
Total	345(332)	73(86)	418(418)
Scotland	16(18)	7(5)	23(23)
Northern Ireland	15(15)	1(1)	16(16
Grand Total	376(365)	81(92)	457(457)
(Results for 1993 are in brackets)
¹ Northumbrian and Yorkshire, and South West and Wessex NRA regions have amalgamated, but results are recorded separately here for the purpose of comparison.