On the list of water shame

IN A POOR GROUP Scarborough’s North Bay is rated “excellent”, alongside other Yorkshire beaches including Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, Sandsend, Runswick Bay and Cayton Bay.

However, Reighton, near Scarborough is rated only “sufficient” and Filey “good”, with two out of three stars.

South Bay was one of just six bathing spots that failed to meet even minimum standards for water quality.

The other UK beaches judged to be poor include Clacton, Walpole Bay, Margate, Instow and Ilfracombe in Devon, and Burnham Jetty North in Somerset. circle and we need to know what is happening there.

“There was £50 million spent there and we were told it was going to be the crème de la crème and now we are all very concerned as to what is going on.”

Cllr Paul Moody said the council were promised answers in March, then April, and asked Cllr Bastiman if Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency could be called to explain the delays to the council.

Cllr Bastiman agreed that it could be a course of action to take.

A spokesman for the Yorkshire Bathing Water Partnership, made up of Scarborough Council, Welcome to Yorkshire, Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water, said: “The Environment Agency has recently carried out cutting-edge DNA profiling on water samples to help identify different sources of pollution and the analysis of these results is currently being finalised.

“The Environment Agency is expected to formally report the findings to the organisations within the partnership, including Scarborough Council, in the next few weeks. The partnership will then use the data to better understand what can be done to improve water quality at South Bay.”