River and Bathing Water Quality
2006/2007
January 2008
The article uses information from the Environment Agency's website which can be found by going to the section for the North West Region. The information is presented in two tables and covers waterways and bathing water quality.
Table 1 highlights the percentages of 'Good', 'Fair', 'Poor' and 'Bad' waterways in Lancashire districts, 2006, as assessed by the Environment Agency chemistry General Quality Assessment (GQA). Total waterways per district vary dramatically across the authority from just 0.2 kilometres in Blackpool (lowest in the North West) to over 200 km in the rural Ribble Valley district.
In total, Table 1 has details for 1,131.3 kilometres of waterways in the 14 Lancashire authorities, which represents 20.8% of the North West total.
For the North West as a whole in 2006, 92.1% of rivers were of good or fair chemical quality, which means that they have low levels of organic pollution and adequate levels of oxygen.
In comparison with the 2005 results (detailed in a previous edition of this article), the Lancashire figures for the past year are somewhat of a mixed bag. In 2005, 4.7% of the river length in South Ribble was classified in the bad quality category and a year later this remains the only section of waterway in the county in this category. In the poor category however there have been some yearly increases. Blackburn with Darwen and Pendle have moved from positions of zero poor classifications in 2005 to 13.4% and 9.1% respectively in 2006. Poor river quality results also rose in Lancaster, Preston, Ribble Valley and Wyre.
| Percentage of Waterways Classed as... | Total Length of Waterways (km) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Fair | Poor | Bad | ||
| Burnley | 55.6 | 44.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 49.1 |
| Chorley | 33.1 | 65.4 | 1.5 | 0.0 | 97.5 |
| Fylde | 0.0 | 82.1 | 17.9 | 0.0 | 33.9 |
| Hyndburn | 48.7 | 51.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 40.1 |
| Lancaster | 78.1 | 17.7 | 4.2 | 0.0 | 195.9 |
| Pendle | 42.9 | 57.1 | 9.1 | 0.0 | 63.1 |
| Preston | 16.4 | 74.5 | 9.1 | 0.0 | 69.1 |
| Ribble Valley | 84.1 | 15.2 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 200.3 |
| Rossendale | 79.8 | 20.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 45.3 |
| South Ribble | 35.7 | 43.5 | 16.1 | 4.7 | 42.1 |
| West Lancashire | 23.6 | 62.2 | 14.2 | 0.0 | 144.9 |
| Wyre | 46.2 | 40.5 | 13.3 | 0.0 | 104.9 |
| Blackburn with Darwen UA | 22.9 | 63.7 | 13.4 | 0.0 | 44.9 |
| Blackpool UA | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| North West | 63.2 | 28.9 | 7.0 | 0.8 | 5,425.0 |
| Source Environment Agency | |||||
It was not however all bad news and poor river quality figures were lower in Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire. Rossendale district recorded a significant improvement in its good river quality classification with the percentage rising from 54.2% to 79.8%. In South Ribble, the percentage in the highest classification also rose from 16.2% to 35.7%. For these two areas, the improvements were primarily the result of improvements to river lengths previously classified as 'Fair'.
South Ribble district, as mentioned earlier, is the only Lancashire authority to have a proportion of its river length classified under the 'Bad' water heading (4.7%). This represents just under 2 kilometres of rivers in the authority and equates to around 0.18% of all Lancashire rivers. The North West percentage of bad river quality declined significantly from 1.5% to 0.8% over the year to 2006. Further improvements will be achieved by tackling bad river quality areas in Knowsley (26.6%) and Wirral (25.3%). The significant reductions in the worst category in the year to 2006 were underpinned by major improvements in Barrow-in-Furness and Warrington.
The Source of Pollution
Many human activities and their by-products have the potential to pollute water. Large and small industrial enterprises, the water industry, the urban infrastructure, agriculture, horticulture, transport, discharges from abandoned mines, and deliberate or accidental pollution incidents all affect water quality. Pollution may arise at point source, such as discharges through pipes, or may be more dispersed and diffuse. Both sources may be exacerbated by adverse weather conditions.
The North West coast is bounded by the Irish Sea. Although relatively small (it has only about 6% of the volume of the North Sea), the Irish Sea receives significant inputs of contaminants from direct discharges along its coasts, and from diffuse agricultural and urban sources. Through a multi-million pound European funding stream, the Environment Agency has worked with international partners to improve coastal and recreational waters.
Bathing Water
The Environment Agency samples North West beaches approximately 20 times per week between May and September, to assess the performance against bacteriological standards laid down in the Bathing Water Directive. The DEFRA website has details of the 1976 EC Bathing Water Directive.
| 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2003 | 2001 | 1999 | 1997 | 1995 | |
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| Blackpool South |  |
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| Blackpool Central | No result(1) | No result(1) | |
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| Blackpool North | No result(1) | |
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| Bispham | |
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| Cleveleys | No result(1) | |
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| Fleetwood | |
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| Heysham | |
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| Morecambe South | |
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| Morecambe North | |
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| St Annes Pier | |
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| St Annes North | |
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| Notes = compliant with Guideline Standard, = non-compliant with Imperative Standard |
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| blank = compliant with Imperative Standard but non-compliant with Guideline Standard | ||||||||
| (1) Closed for major engineering works on sea walls and promenades. | ||||||||
| Source Environment Agency | ||||||||
The tendency over the past 10 years has been for more and more beaches to meet the European mandatory standards. However a reversal of this trend was caused in 2007 by the poor weather. That particular year was the wettest summer ever recorded.
In 2007, 32 out of the 35 bathing waters sampled in the North West met the European mandatory standards. Of the 11 Lancashire beaches, it was not possible in 2007 to obtain samples at three of the locations. Blackpool Central and North were not sampled as major redevelopment work has been taking place along the sea front in the town. In addition, the seafront at Ceveleys has received a major facelift, which started in November 2005. The £19 million scheme combines new integrated sea-defenses and an improved promenade area, but unfortunately the work has prevented sampling taking place.
The 2007 Lancashire results reveal that St. Annes North passed the most stringent (guideline) standard, whilst five other beaches achieved the mandatory standard. It was unfortunate that in 2007, two of the three North West beaches that failed the mandatory standard were in Lancashire: Morecambe South and St. Annes Pier.
The Environment Agency is not the only source of information on the quality of beaches. The Marine Conservation Society publishes a Good Beach Guide that lists results for the 11 Lancashire beaches as part of its yearly survey of 1,200 UK beaches.
For further details, or if you have any ideas for improving the content of this article, please contact:
Bryan Moulding
Tel 01772 534172
Email Bryan.Moulding@lancashire.gov.uk