All UK environmental regulators have now published their 2025 bathing water classifications, with England’s going live last week. And while the official narrative focuses on “excellent” bathing water quality, the reality is far more complex. The classifications mask the limitations of an outdated, underpowered testing regime – one that simply isn’t protecting public health.
What the 2025 Bathing Water Classifications tell us
The testing regime isn’t fit for purpose
Regulators only test during the summer bathing season. In England and Wales, that’s 15 May to 30 September. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, it’s 1 June to 15 September. At the end of this short season, they use the results to assign a classification of excellent, good, sufficient, or poor. Yet this process is riddled with flaws:
- Summer data doesn’t reflect year-round pollution. Drier summer months mean fewer sewage spills and less agricultural run-off. Winter is the opposite – more rain, more overflows, more pollution. A summer-only dataset can’t represent real annual water quality. The EA has shown this mismatch themselves.
- Too little data, collected too infrequently. Classifications are based on just 10–20 samples, taken from a single location, once a week, with data from the previous four years included. Samples can also be disregarded. Meanwhile, water quality fluctuates constantly with tide, weather, flow and pollution events. We need real-time, year-round testing.
- They only test for two bacteria. An “excellent” classification means low levels of E. coli and intestinal enterococci. But what about heavy metals, PFAS, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, or other pathogens? These are regularly found in UK waterways, yet they are completely ignored by the current testing regime.
This doesn’t mean all water quality is terrible. It’s not. But it does mean the monitoring system is not transparent or robust enough to protect public health or hold polluters to account. As surfers, swimmers and water lovers, we deserve better.
Below, six 2025 case studies show just how broken the system really is.
The story of a broken system, told by the bathing waters
Porthtowan: what “excellent” looks like in practice
Porthtowan received an “excellent” classification this year.
So why was a surf competition cancelled in September – during the bathing season – because sewage alerts indicated it was unsafe? Why have there been 218 hours of sewage spills at the beach this year? That’s equivalent to one pipe spewing sewage non-stop for nine days.
Porthtowan isn’t an example of excellent water quality. It’s an example of a monitoring system that is failing the beach and everyone who swims, surfs or paddles there.
Combe Martin: dangerously disregarding bad data
Combe Martin fell from good to sufficient this year. But its true classification should have been far worse.
The Environment Agency discarded four samples taken during short-term pollution alerts – samples that contained the highest bacteria counts of the season. The rationale? They would “skew” the dataset.
But if pollution is consistently impacting a site, that should be reflected in the classification. Removing the worst data hides the real risk. We did the maths, and Combe Martin would be well within the “poor” category – meaning the water could be harmful to your health. The fact that legislation allows this manipulation is not just misleading. It’s dangerous.
*data from Swimfo
Ogmore-by-Sea: a ‘poor’ site that needs stronger protection
Ogmore-by-Sea in Wales was designated in 2023 and has received a “poor” classification every year since. It’s one of 20 UK bathing waters that have been rated “poor” every year since designation.
Many of these sites are inland, where water quality is especially concerning. This year:
- 36% of inland bathing sites across the UK were classified as poor
- Of 15 designated river sites (all in England and Wales), 12 were “poor” – a shocking 80%
We need regulators and polluters held to account through enforced legal action. Bathing water status is meant to trigger improvement – not permanent failure.
Cullercoats: saved from automatic de-designation (for now)
Cullercoats in North Tyneside has received a “poor” rating for the fifth consecutive year. Previously, this would have triggered automatic de-designation, meaning no further monitoring or legal protection.
Thanks to reforms won through community campaigning (and a huge outcry from ocean activists), automatic de-designation is gone. That’s a major win, as no site should be“too polluted to protect”.
However, the threat hasn’t disappeared. Sites with persistent “poor” classifications will now be judged on feasibility – essentially, whether it’s “too expensive” to clean them up. For the 20 consistently “poor classified” sites, the risk remains high.
Wallingford Beach and Porthluney: community action driving improvement
Not all the news is bad.
Wallingford Beach on the Thames and Porthluney on the south coast of Cornwall both saw improvements this year. Wallingford moved from “poor” to “sufficient” after campaigning by Thames21 and local swimmers. Porthluney – once called “Cornwall’s most polluted beach” – also improved to sufficient, thanks to tireless work by local groups and citizen scientists.
Without bathing water designation, neither site would have benefited from monitoring or investment. The classification system needs reform, but designation does drive change when communities fight for it.
And further afield…
Scotland: progress, pressure and persistent blind spots
Even at sites classed as good or sufficient, SEPA action plans obtained through Freedom of Information request reveal a long-term pattern of E. coli spikes going back to 2015. These plans exist because the sites are designated bathing waters, and they show ongoing investigations into repeated pollution events.
The data highlights a worrying trend: human-source contamination appears on dry days as well as after rain, pointing to dry spills from Scottish Water assets. Yet few of these spills seem to have resulted in penalties, even though they directly affect public health.
The action plans show that, while monitoring and investment is happening, pollution patterns persist year after year.
Northern Ireland: limited monitoring in a water quality crisis
Northern Ireland has some of the most stunning coastal waters in the UK – but also some of the least monitored and least protected.
There are fewer designated bathing waters than in the rest of the UK, meaning many popular swim spots have no legal protection, no monitoring and no requirement for pollution reduction. And the only inland waterway, Rae’s Wood on Lough Neagh, received a poor classification this year. Over the past year, Lough Neagh has faced severe and recurring pollution problems, including extensive toxic algal blooms driven by nutrient loading, agricultural run-off and wastewater discharges. These wider failures are directly felt at Rea’s Wood, where swimmers have repeatedly encountered deterioration in water quality long before the classification confirmed it.
The “poor” rating isn’t a surprise. It’s further evidence of a lough in ecological crisis. It underscores the need for urgent action across the entire catchment, because Rea’s Wood cannot improve while the wider system continues to decline.
the short version
The 2025 classifications paint a tidy picture, but the reality is messier. Beaches labelled “excellent” can still be closed for sewage spills, inland sites are failing year after year and persistent pollution (even on dry days) goes unpunished. Community action can drive change, but without stronger enforcement, better monitoring and urgent investment in our rivers, lakes and loughs, public health and water quality will continue to be left behind. It’s time for regulators and polluters to be held accountable and for the government to take more ambitious actions in reforming legislation – and for our waters to be genuinely safe to swim in.
