The beaches to have on your bucket list

ITS golden sands won it a starring role in the film Chariots of Fire in 1981, placing it on the bucket list of tourists around the world.

And St Andrews’ West Sands is still a hit with sun-seekers after being named one of the best beaches in the country.

It is one of 60 handed an accolade at this year’s Scottish Beach Awards.

The stretch of Fife coast has featured on the list every year since the awards were founded in 1993, a winning streak matched only by Gullane Bents in East Lothian.

Also on this year’s list are Ayr beach and Loch Morlich near Aviemore, the only freshwater beach with an award.

Appearing for the first time since 2012 is Lunan Bay, Angus, which has replaced Yellowcraigs, East Lothian.

The awards are administered by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful.

Chief executive Derek Robertson said: ‘The awards set the standard for our stunning coastlines and inland shores, making sure that they are litter-free, provide excellent facilities for families and encourage more visitors to our beautiful beaches.’

Fife tops the list this year with 15 awardwinning beaches, followed by 12 in the Highlands, eight in Aberdeenshire and seven in East Lothian.

Angus has six, the Shetland Islands five, South Ayrshire three and there is one award-winning beach in each of North Ayrshire, the Borders, Dundee and Aberdeen.

Scottish Beach Award flags will be flying from all the beaches from next week.

Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of national tourism body VisitScotland, congratulated the award winners. He said: ‘The Scottish Beach Awards play an important role in keeping our beautiful shorelines to a high standard.’

Earlier this year it was disclosed that the number of people working in the tourism sector in Scotland has risen by more than twice the rate of the UK as a whole.

VisitScotland said the Office for National Statistics figures showed the number of people employed in the industry north of the Border grew by 11 per cent.

UK-wide growth was only 4 per cent in 2014-15, according to the VisitScotland report.