Blue Flag, Seaside Award and Beach Management 2004

Background

In 1999 the government published a strategy for tourism “Tomorrow’s Tourism” which noted . . .

“. . . the weakening image and appeal of seaside resorts” and called for “the implementation of imaginative, market-led and sustainable regeneration programmes.”  

Similarly, another report was produced by DEFRA entitled “Marine Stewardship” which confirmed that;

“The Blue Flag award for beaches provides a comparison with coastal resorts across Europe. As well as meeting the guideline values for bathing water quality, the beach must be clean, well managed and promote sound environmental management. National sustainable tourism indicators, published in 2001, include the number of beaches with a Blue Flag or a Seaside Award (a similar scheme that applies for rural and resort beaches)”.₁

In the recently published report by Water UK, “Towards Sustainability” it was stated that;

“526 of the 552 designated coastal bathing water beaches and all 11 inland bathing waters in the UK complied with the mandatory standards of the Bathing Waters Directive 76/160/EEC during the 2001 bathing season, giving an overall success rate of 95.4%.” .

For the bathing water season of 2004, this figure is even higher. In addition the Defra-funded Local Environmental Quality Survey of England 2, shows that the management of beaches has improved significantly.

In summary, many indicators and reports are showing that not only the water quality surrounding our beaches, but the beaches themselves, have dramatically increased in environmental quality in the last ten years.

No doubt with that in mind, and with nearly all designated coastal bathing waters now at mandatory standard, the EU are raising the quality of bathing water in all European Union countries. It is felt that with such compliance, it is time to raise sights and standards again. The EU is mandating this through the Bathing Water Directive for implementation in 2012, as part of the larger more complex Bathing Water Framework which must be implemented by 2015. The key points relevant to ENCAMS are highlighted below:

Mandatory Water Quality Level

From 2012, (originally thought to be 2006), the current Mandatory level is to be abolished. This is the level at which ENCAMS Seaside Awards is currently set.

Guideline Water Quality Level – (Good Status)

From 2012 the existing Guideline (with minor changes) level is to be replaced by “Good Status”. This is the current level that the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) sets for Blue Flag beaches globally. ENCAMS manages (as an agent) but does not own, the Blue Flag beach award scheme in the UK.

Guideline Water Quality Level – (Excellent Status)

The EU is to introduce a new higher level of “Excellent Status”. This is a measure of water quality that is higher than the previous Guideline level (above). The member countries of FEE have voted that for 2012 the Blue Flag beach award will have to meet the new “Excellent Status”. 

The Dublin Beach Summit

In 2003, ENCAMS organised a summit in Dublin, for all interested UK and Ireland organisations regarding beach management, tourism, beach awards and water quality. This included central and local government representatives from Ireland, Scotland and England. A number of decisions were made at this meeting which are considered binding by the respective representatives. The summit was held with the specific objective to increase the standard of beaches and water quality still further, and to rationalise the number of awards, so that the public would be less confused, and could make informed decisions for beach visits.

The representative organisations agreed that there would be just two awards across UK and Ireland; the Blue Flag award and the Green Coast scheme. It was not decided however, who would manage or fund the Green Coast scheme in England. By the nature of the decision, de facto ENCAMS needed to drop its Seaside Award in the very near future. ENCAMS, after conferring with its sponsoring government department agreed to this Summit decision.

However, despite the decision above, it was noted that just one publication covering the UK (and possibly Ireland) that promoted all beaches would be useful. All organisations agreed that they would abandon their own beach guides, beach reports etc, if ENCAMS could convince a publisher to produce a jointly backed publication. ENCAMS is pursuing this course of action.

Funding

It is necessary to spell out the funding restrictions within which ENCAMS operates: ENCAMS receives no sponsorship or funding to run the Seaside Awards and Blue Flag beach award schemes. This is financed solely from award scheme entry fees. The volume of beach operators now entering the awards, and the low level of entry fees, mean that it is fast becoming financial impossible to continue with the awards in their present format. In reality ENCAMS is increasingly subsidising its beach awards from other income it receives, as it does not wholly cover its costs. This is rapidly becoming unsustainable.

ENCAMS receives £3.5million of government funding from Defra. This is given as grant-in-aid on a legal agreement as to the ministerial priorities that ENCAMS will fulfil in that financial year. This currently does not, and never has, included the undertaking of any beach award or management work. In essence, the funding is completely ring-fenced, and ENCAMS cannot use that grant-in-aid to perform or subsidise any non-agreed work, for example beach awards.

Drivers for tourism

ENCAMS’ research with local authorities, beach operators and the public, show that better information is needed for the public so they can make beach destination choices in the UK. There is also a desire to have a good beach guide that will promote beaches, boost tourism and manage visitor expectations of UK beaches. Linking award schemes to tourism, so that there is an increase in visitors to beach destinations is key.

Seaside Awards and beach operators

Whilst there are many drivers for the abolition of Seaside Awards, not least a public commitment, this move will be strongly resisted by beach operators who have designated beaches. It is important to understand that these beach operators not only use the awards to drive up standards and give them a beach management framework, they crucially use it to leverage more budget for their beach operations -  an area which is often neglected within local authority expenditure. It is also politically embarrassing to lose an award once it has been gained, most especially if it is not due to failing water quality.

Non-designated beaches

Whilst the above is a critical point, it may not represent the view of beach operators of non-designated beaches, as they fall outside the current award schemes, as they often lack the resources to sample their own water quality. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these operators wish to have an award or some form of promotion, that will help them get their beaches recognised, not for water quality but for the quality of the beach itself. But this is not just relevant to non-designated beaches, it also applies to areas such as Scotland and the NW of England, who for reasons, often outside their control, cannot obtain the required water quality.

Summary of contextual boundaries

ENCAMS is contextually restricted in its future beach award and management strategy, by the following facts:

·          It has agreed not to run the Seaside Awards in the future with a number of stakeholders/partners/peers at the Dublin Summit 2003. No timelines have been finalised for its abolition.

·          Blue Flag will increase its water quality criteria from the current “guideline” to the new “excellent status” for the 2012 bathing season.

·          It is not financially viable in the long term for ENCAMS, or any other organisation, to continue with the Seaside Awards and Blue Flag schemes in tandem.

·          ENCAMS is committed to producing a ‘good beach guide’ for the UK, which may, or may not, include beaches with mandatory water quality.

·          Beach operators need an award or recognition scheme to leverage funds into beach management improvements and maintenance. However, this needs to be at a lower level than the proposed ‘excellent status’.

·          Non-designated beaches would like the opportunity to promote their beaches at the national level.

It is within this context that ENCAMS wishes to propose the following:

Beach Management System (BMS)=

The BMS is complete but will have additional modules added on an annual basis to keep it relevant. There is much discussion around the pricing of the module and how it will be delivered. Some beach operators say they are not prepared to pay for this and believe it should be free, however no organisation can deliver the officer time to support the system for nothing, and who would have the available resources to produce materials at no cost? The most favoured outcome is if Defra fund the additional coastal officers requested by ENCAMS in their grant submission 2004 – 2007. If this were to happen, ENCAMS would be able to offer beach operator support using the BMS, and this may be able to be offered free if it were tied into the application for Good Beach recognition. This model will need to be developed to see if it is feasible. If no funding is forthcoming from Defra it is likely that the BMS would become obsolete, except in the areas where ENCAMS officers have funding such as the NE and SW.

Recommendations

Blue Flag beach award

ENCAMS continues to administer the Blue Flag beach award in the UK on behalf of FEE using the guideline water quality criteria until 2010. The ‘excellent status’ criteria is inspected and judged during July and August 2011, so that the new level Blue Flags can be flown during the 2012 bathing season. All Blue Flag beaches will be inspected by ENCAMS every year from 2004, and there will be no ‘rural’ or other categories. The Blue Flag jury will have a new make-up and constitution, as shown in Appendix 1.

Seaside Award

ENCAMS abolishes the Seaside Award scheme in 2005. It will not inspect all Seaside Award beaches during the 2004 bathing season, but will sample beaches to ensure quality standards are met, and base decisions on entry forms. This will allow qualifying beaches to fly the Seaside Award flag during the 2005 season. However there will be no applications for the award in late 2005, and there will be no further Seaside Awards from 2006.

Green Coast scheme

ENCAMS will support any organisation that wishes to run the Green Coast scheme, in the UK or Ireland, but will not run the scheme itself in England, nor is it likely to be in a position to offer financial assistance.

Good Beach Guide

It has been agreed that ENCAMS pursues a publisher for the Good Beach Guide, and delivers the content using Blue Flag, Seaside Award, Resorts Association, Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) recommendations. The first edition, if funded, would be available from December 2005, with content completed for October 2005. For ENCAMS purposes this edition would use the 2004 Blue Flag and Seaside Award entry results.

For the Good Beach Guide available from December 2005. ENCAMS’ would like to use the new ‘recognition’ scheme below, to judge entries. In effect ENCAMS would design a new set of criteria for different categories of beaches, which will not necessarily be linked to water quality. These criteria are likely to include many of the current ones for Seaside Awards such as safety etc, and particularly cleanliness and management. Beaches could then be described more appropriately, and entries could include dogwalking beaches, beaches for wildlife, beaches for watersports, family beaches or beaches of outstanding beauty. It is anticipated there would be around 6 or 7 of these new categories. However, the Blue Flag beaches would be seen as the ‘5 star’ entries.

Good Beach ‘recognition’

If beaches were to be included in the Good Beach Guide, ENCAMS would propose a ‘recognition’ award to match the inclusion in this new annual publication. Beaches would apply to ENCAMS as they currently do for Seaside Awards, and they would be judged under the various criteria, for the category they wish to enter. It is proposed that the Blue Flag jury (see above) is used to judge entries. If successful, instead of receiving a Seaside Award, they would receive ‘Good Beach’ recognition, which would include a flag, posters, artwork for publicity purposes, sample press release for promotion and for signposting to the new publication (e.g. “find us in the Good Beach Guide”), and advice on promoting the beach. ENCAMS would inspect entries, and ensure that over a three-year period all were visited at least once.

The timeline would include entries in May for sample inspecting in July/August, judging in early September, final copy for October, publication in December, with media promotion in January.

This recognition would give more publicity and kudos than the current Seaside Awards to beach operators, but would still give non-designated beaches the opportunity to be recognised. This new recognition scheme would need to be modeled financially however.

Beach Management System

The BMS is offered at a consultancy price from 1^st April in the ENCAMS’ regions that can support it sufficiently (through P&P). If ENCAMS receives its increased grant provision for beaches, it examines a new model for running the system using newly funded officers.

Proposed key milestones

To conclude, ENCAMS wishes to propose the following timetable