With warmer sunny days just around the corner people will soon be heading to the country's beaches. However, whilst there are more than 421 locations in England designated as official swimming spots by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a dozen of these locations should be avoided due to the poor water quality.
Luckily none of the beaches to avoid are close to Nottinghamshire, or in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire, where many families visit popular beaches, such as Skegness. The Agency regularly checks the water at each of the sites to ensure they are safe for the public to use, but at 12 sites the water quality was not safe.
These locations include popular beaches such as Blackpool North and Weston-super-Mare, as well as the river Wharfe in Ilkley which featured in the Paul Whitehouse documentary, “Our Troubled Rivers”. Other spots include Tunstall, Bridlington South Beach and Heacham.
Several other spots off the south coast named in the list include Watcombe, Dunster Beach, Weston-super-Mare Sand Bay, Ilfracombe Wildersmouth, Burnham Jetty North and Rock. In the north, other locations include Scarborough South Bay and Tynemouth Cullercoats.
Other locations recommended to avoid swimming in include St Mary's Bay in Kent, Bognor Regis in Aldwick and Wolvercote Mill Stream. In addition to the 12 locations where it is not advised not to bathe, a further two sites have been closed, and several others have been delisted as official bathing spots since 2016.
This includes Staithes, Silloth, Allonby South, Lyme Regis Church Cliff Beach and Clacton.
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