Sykes Lane and Whitwell Creek at Rutland Water to get swimming status from May

Two sites at Rutland Water are being officially designated as a bathing water sites.

Following a two-week public consultation, Sykes Lane beach and Whitwell Creek at Rutland Water, will be officially designated ahead of the 2023 bathing water season.

The new sites, which also include Firestone Bay in Plymouth and a section of the River Deben at Waldringfield, will take the total number of bathing waters across the country to 424, the highest number ever.

The Environment Agency regularly monitors water quality at designated bathing water sites and assesses whether action is needed to cut pollution levels, working with local communities, farmers and water companies to improve water quality at these locations.

Rutland MP Alicia Kearns (Con) welcomed the news.

"This is fantastic news for Rutland Water where so many of us love to swim and enjoy fantastic water-based sports," she said.

"For a community so proud of the iconic waters we enjoy, this news means we can be even more sure of the quality of the waters in our beautiful Reservoir for many years to come and will hopefully even further boost tourism to our county."

Water Minister Rebecca Pow added: “These popular swimming spots will now undergo regular monitoring, starting this May, so bathers have up-to-date information on the quality of the water.

“The regular monitoring also means that action can be taken if minimum standards aren’t being met.

“We now have more bathing waters than ever, and we’ve worked hard in recent years to boost their status – with an incredible 93 per cent now classed as good or excellent – and our new Plan for Water will help us go further and faster on our targets.”

Ms Pow said that over the past decade, good progress had been made in improving bathing water quality at existing sites, thanks to robust regulation and strong investment. Since 2010, the proportion of bathing waters assessed as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ has increased from 76 per cent to 93 per cent.

Meanwhile, 72 per cent are considered ‘excellent’ - up from just 51 per cent in 2010. This is the highest level ever, despite the classification standards for bathing waters having been made more stringent in 2015.

Today’s announcement follows on from the Plan for Water, launched by the government last week, which sets out the action being taken by government to clean up our waters and ensure a plentiful supply into the future.

It also follows the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan, published earlier this year, which includes a target for everyone to live within a 15-minute walk from nature, such as bathing waters.

The Environment Agency will regularly take samples at the newly designated sites during the bathing season - which runs from May 15 to September 30.

When selecting new sites, Defra considers how many people bathe there, if the site has suitable infrastructure and facilities, such as toilets, and where investment in water quality improvements following designation would have the most impact.

All applications are assessed against these factors and only those that meet these factors are taken forward to public consultation.