England's bathing waters five times more likely to be polluted than the EU's, survey finds

English swimming waters are five times more likely to be polluted than those in the EU, research has revealed.

- Helena Horton

Experts have warned that the country is in danger of becoming the "dirty man of Europe" as it falls at the bottom of the leader board for bathing water that is free of bacterial contaminants.

The campaign group Best for Britain analysed the quality of bathing waters under British and EU standards and found that across all four UK nations holidaymakers were less likely to enjoy "excellent" quality waters than in the EU.

Their research found that while 64.2% of England's bathing waters were rated excellent by the Environment Agency in 2024, 85.4% of the EU's were rated excellent by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in the same year.

England also had more bathing waters rated as "poor" than any country in the EU, with 8.4%. Scotland was on 3.4%, Wales on 1.8%, and the EU on just 1.5%. Northern Ireland had no bathing water sites rated poor.

Estonia had the highest share of poor bathing waters among EU countries (4.6%). Out of all the countries measured under the EEA standards, which included some non-EU countries, Albania ranked the worst with 22.9% rated as poor.