Yorkshire to wave goodbye to Blue Flags as Europe raises the bar

Scarborough North Bay and Whitby will keep theirs, but Bridlington North, Hornsea and Withernsea have failed to meet the new standard for bathing water quality required for the award. Filey and Bridlington South were stripped of their Blue Flags this summer after failing water quality tests.

Peter Stevenson, from the Environment Agency, which provides the data to administrator Keep Britain Tidy, said they had examined the last four years of results, including this year, and only Scarborough North Bay and Whitby met the new “excellent” standard.

Water quality at Bridlington North, Filey and Hornsea and Withernsea is considered “good” while Bridlington South is judged “sufficient”, as is Scarborough South Bay.

It comes as the body that oversees the Europe-wide Blue Flag scheme introduced new standards two years early.

Welcome to Yorkshire and councils, had unsuccessfully lobbied administrator Keep Britain Tidy to hold off until 2015, when a new EU directive, which they were working towards, comes into force.

Mr Stevenson said: “They are setting the bar high for excellence; we are talking very tiny numbers of bacteria at that level.”

In Filey there’d been three times as much rainfall this year when they were taking bathing water samples and that had a “direct unequivocal” impact on bathing water quality, he said.

Yorkshire Water is investing £110m on improving sewerage systems on the coast, with work already underway in Scarborough, and due to start at Bridlington this autumn.

Lee Pitcher, from YW, said: “We’ve always planned for our work to be completed by April 2014 before the official European revised standards come into force. This aligns with the Environment Agency’s plans for tacking diffuse pollution.”

Bob Hillery, president of the Bridlington Tourism Association, said: “What causes most of our problems is the water that rushes down from the hills, filling the storm tanks, then it has to overflow somewhere. This new 3m pipe will get rid of it. It’s a major boost if you can advertise a Blue Flag, but it doesn’t deter people by the thousand - they are not saaying the water is not clean.”

East Riding councillor Jane Evison said: “We were aware that this would happen, but I would stress the fact that we are “good”.”