THE highest number of Scotland’s bathing waters on record will meet the best environmental standards in 2025, figures have shown.
Figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) show that 87% of Scotland’s bathing waters will achieve excellent or good classifications.
A further 10% will meet the sufficient standard and reflects an ongoing trend for Scottish bathing water quality, Sepa said.
For the year ahead, Scotland will have 89 designated bathing waters, of which 50 will be excellent.
The water classifications will be as follows:
- 50 – excellent
- 27 – good
- 9 – sufficient
- 3 – poor
Sepa routinely analyses water quality at all of Scotland’s 89 designated bathing water sites during the summer months to protect human health.
Principal scientist for bathing waters at Sepa Ruth Stidson said: “The highest number of Scotland’s bathing waters rated excellent or good for 2025 represents tangible improvements following more than a decade of targeted investment and ongoing work with Scottish water, land managers and stakeholders to improve our water environment.
“Scotland’s bathing waters monitoring programme has significantly expanded since it began in 1988 and has helped identify pollution issues so crucial improvement measures can be implemented and pollution reduced at the source.”
Scotland's acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy Gillian Martin also welcomed the news.
She said: “I am pleased to see an increase in the number of our bathing waters achieving the highest classification for bathing water quality, with 87% achieving good or excellent water quality status.
“We continue to see the benefits of our continued investment in protecting and improving bathing waters across the country, and targeted work in priority catchments.”
However, Martin conceded there is still “work to be done” to ensure all water meets this standard.
Over the past decade, Sepa has ensured Scottish water investment has been targeted to drive major improvements in water quality at locations which were not meeting the required standard.
The South Beach in Ayr for example has now achieved four successive good classifications after many years of poor classification.
Three bathing waters will have a poor classification in 2025 – Kinghorn (Harbour Beach), Lower Largo and Fisherrow Sands.
Sepa says it is creating and implementing improvement plans at all these sites.
