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Riddle of the sands as Britons turn their backs on our beaches
DURING a fleeting visit to the North East at the weekend, I went for a stroll along Whitley Bay beach.
It's a place that holds many of my happiest childhood memories, playing in the sand and gently paddling in the surf, and I always try to squeeze in a walk on the beach whenever I'm back in that neck of the woods.
It has more than a mile of golden sand, and on Sunday I was blissfully reminded just how wonderful our coastline can be. The sea was like a millpond, the sun was out and in an hour I didn't see more than two dozen people.
Not only that, but it was spotlessly clean. There was plenty of seaweed and the beach was awash with all manner of colourful shells and stones, but there were no plastic bags, or sweet wrappers and no tyres or supermarket trolleys.
A colleague had visited the beaches at Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay only the previous weekend, and she reported
on the pristine cleanliness of sand and water at both, which had even tempted her to go in for a dip.
So I was surprised to see a study yesterday claiming that two-thirds of Britons go on holiday abroad because our own beaches are in such a poor state.
A survey of 2000 people, carried out on behalf of Corona beer's Save the Beach campaign, found that 92 per cent of those questioned would visit our coastline more often if the beaches were cleaner and
better maintained.
Blackpool was top of the list of unpopular British beaches, while Cornwall was highlighted as having the beaches people most want to visit.
The campaign is asking people to nominate a dirty British beach in need of rescue and the one judged most in need of regeneration by voters and experts from the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) – which
runs the Blue Flag programme for clean beaches – will be cleaned-up.
Environmentalist and campaign spokeswoman Alexandra Cousteau, grand-daughter of explorer Jacques Cousteau, said: "Human indifference is the greatest threat to our coastline. Every one of us has the chance to
make a change which is beneficial to our beaches."
It's not the first time the quality of our beaches has come into question recently. Last month, the Marine Conservation Society's annual Good Beach Guide found that nearly half of the 777 British beaches tested weren't "recommended" for swimming.
Equally alarming was a Marine Conservation (MSC) study which revealed that coastal litter levels have more than doubled in the last 15 years, putting seabirds, turtles and dolphins at risk.
The number of British beaches with Blue Flag status – a prestigious international award given to beaches with clean water, litter-free shores, good facilities and safety – has also dropped to 71, including six in Yorkshire, down from 82 last year.
There are 2,500 Blue Flag beaches worldwide, with Spain (499) and Greece (430) leading the way. However, Ginette Unsworth, of Keep Britain Tidy, claims we shouldn't get too hung up about these figures. "I think more people go abroad for the weather than anything else, but it will be interesting to see what happens this year with the impact of the recession," she says.
"It's a bit of an urban myth that people use British beaches to go swimming. According to the research we've done, more than 80 per cent of people don't visit our beaches to go swimming. Many people don't go to the beach between June and September and instead visit them during the winter months."
One of the reasons for the drop in the number of top quality beaches is last summer's heavy rain, which swept sewage and other pollutants into our rivers and seas. "You can have a great beach that is free of litter, has excellent access for disabled people and is very well managed, but last year's flooding has affected the quality of water
on some beaches," says Ginette Unsworth.
Despite this, she believes that our coastline still has much to offer. "There are some great beaches in this country, and if more people took the time to visit them, they would realise some of the jewels we have, rather than dismissing them."
Elliott Frisby, of Visit Britain, agrees. "Britain isn't somewhere you go for sea, sun and sand, it's not a beach destination. People tend to go overseas for a beach holiday. But Britain has a wide range of beaches, it has pebble beaches where people can go fossil-hunting, it has conservation areas, beaches with great coastal walks and some excellent sandy beaches."
But it's worth remembering, he says, that back in 2000 only 24 British beaches were awarded the coveted Blue Flag. "There are areas we need to work on, but generally speaking our beaches are constantly improving and they're certainly better than they were 10 or 20 years ago."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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