Official Statistics

Bathing water quality statistics

Annual statistics showing if bathing waters in England meet regulatory standards.

Applies to England

Documents

Statistics on bathing waters in England for 2017 (revised May 2018)

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email defra.helpline@defra.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Statistics on bathing waters in England for 2016

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email defra.helpline@defra.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Statistics on UK bathing waters for 2015

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email defra.helpline@defra.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

Bathing waters in England have not been classified in 2020. This is due to the severe impacts on bathing water monitoring and analysis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic and the necessary adherence with government guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.

An official statistic has not been produced for 2020.

The Environment Agency closely monitors beaches and inland waters that are designated bathing waters to check that standards are being maintained.

They must publish the official statistics and classifications awarded.

Bathing waters can be classified as ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘sufficient’ or ‘poor’.

Latest results – 2023

Out of 423 bathing waters:

  • 405 (95.7 per cent) met at least the minimum standard
  • 281 (66.4 per cent) were classified as ‘Excellent’
  • 18 (4.3 per cent) did not meet the minimum standard and were classified as ‘poor’
Classification % Numbers
Excellent 66.4% 281
Good 23.4% 99
Sufficient 5.9% 25
Poor 4.3 % 18

Bathing water quality in the rest of the UK

See additional statistical data.

Defra statistics: environment

Taking a minute to provide an insight into your data requirements would really help us improve the way we produce our data in the future. Please complete a snap survey at: https://defragroup.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6fLTen4iYwNI4Rv

All responses will be taken into account in developing future products.

Updates to this page

Published 26 November 2012
Last updated 6 December 2023 + show all updates
  1. Chart updated

  2. changes to chart view

  3. 2023 release published

  4. Latest data to 2022 added.

  5. Figures for 2021 bathing water quality published.

  6. Cancellation of the 2020 release due to impacts of Covid19

  7. 2019 results published

  8. A change to the classification of Southend Three Shells and the associated figures.

  9. 2018 figures released

  10. Change to the classification of a bathing water.site

  11. Annual update.

  12. Annual update to publication.

  13. Added summary for English beaches and links to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland information.

  14. New figures for UK published 5 November

  15. Bathing water statistics for 2014 published.

  16. 2013 figures

  17. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page