Bathing water compliance ticks down to 97% in 2022 but "excellent" beach number grows

Just over 97% of bathing waters met minimum Bathing Water Regulation standards in the 2022 bathing water season, slightly down from the 99% that passed in 2021. However, 72% met the "Excellent" standard, the highest since new stringent standards were introduced in 2015.

Of the 419 English bathing waters monitored by the Environment Agency, the results were:

Excellent: 302 bathing sites, 72.1%

Good: 87 bathing sites, 20.8%

Sufficient: 18 bathing sites, 4.3%

Poor: 12 bathing sites, 2.9%..