Englands's Swimming Sites 5X More LIkely To Be Polluted Than Rivers And Beaches In EU Nations

English swimming waters are five times more likely to be polluted than those in the EU, new research has revealed. Experts have said that the country is in danger of becoming the “dirty man of Europe” again as it falls at the bottom of the leaderboard for bathing water which is free of bacterial contaminants.

The campaign group Best for Britain analysed the quality of bathing waters under UK and EU standards and found that across all four nations of the UK, holidaymakers are less likely to enjoy “excellent” quality waters than in the EU. Their research found that while 64.2% of England’s bathing waters were rated excellent by the Environment Agency (EA) in 2024, 85.4% of the EU’s were excellent according to the European Environment Agency (EEA) in the same year.

England also had more bathing waters rated as “poor” quality than any country in the EU, with 8.4%. Scotland was on 3.4%, Wales on 1.8% and the EU on just 1.5%. Northern Ireland had no bathing water sites rated poor. By way of comparison, Estonia had the highest share of officially rated “poor” bathing waters among EU countries (4.6%). Out of all the countries measured under the EEA standards, which includes some non EU countries, Albania ranks the worst, with 22.9% of its bathing waters rated as poor.

A “poor” rating means that the water quality falls below the acceptable level for safe bathing, meaning it contains too large a quantity of bacteria such as intestinal enterococci and E coli. These bacteria can cause serious illness, so people are directed to avoid swimming in areas rated poor.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/08/englands-swimming-waters-five-times-more-likely-to-be-polluted-than-in-eu-research-finds