A Yorkshire beach has been given a ‘brown flag’ in annual water quality awards that use Environment Agency data to showcase which beaches need to work on their seawater quality for swimmers. Let us start this with the fact that we love Scarborough and all that it has to offer, and this is a light-hearted campaign to raise awareness of water quality issues across the UK.
Scarborough’s South Bay was named 15th in a list of 15 beaches in England that have been given a Brown Flag for 2026, with Bridlington’s South Beach wiping away its Brown Flag from last year after improving its water quality and is now considered ‘sufficient’ rather than ‘poor’.
The Brown Flag Awards are organised by travel website HolidayParkGuru.co.uk, which analyses Environment Agency data from hundreds of beaches before handing out the prizes. The Brown Flag beaches are those rated ‘poor’ for water quality by the Environment Agency. This is because of their levels of bacteria such as e-coli from sewage and other waste. s the country include
In total, 15 beaches in England have been given Brown Flags for 2026, including beaches in Cumbria, Blackpool, and Weston-Super-Mare. Last year featured 19 beaches, so there have been improvements.
The tongue-in-cheek, Brown Flag Awards by Holiday Park Guru’s may use Environment Agency data, but do not have any link with the Environment Agency or any other awards, according to Yorkshire Live. If you’d like to check w
On a more positive note, Yorkshire ranks 12th out of 19 coastal counties for clean beaches and 52% of its beaches are rated excellent. Yorkshire’s beaches have been awarded top marks, with 3 Star “Excellent” ratings highlighting some of the best coastal spots in the region. These include Cayton Bay, Danes Dyke, Flamborough South Landing, Hornsea Beach, Marske Sands, Redcar Granville Beach, Redcar Lifeboat Station Beach, Redcar Stray, Sandsend Beach, Whitby Beach, Wilsthorpe Beach and Withernsea Beach, all recognised for their excellent quality and appeal to visitors.
Across the border, Lancashire is at the bottom of the county league table with none of its ten designated bathing spots achieving the Environment Agency’s coveted three-star ‘excellent’ rating for cleanliness. Somerset, Cumbria, Merseyside and Kent are all in the bottom half of the league table.
Keen sea-swimmer Robbie Lane from HolidayParkGuru.co.uk said: “As we saw on the TV programme Dirty Business, some of England’s beaches are in an appalling state and are deserving of brown flags to warn swimmers. Congratulations are due then to Bridlington South Beach, which is no longer a Brown Flag beach. It’s not such good news for Scarborough South Bay, which has been a winner every year since we began the Brown Flag Awards in 2024. There’s still some way to go for Yorkshire, which is lagging behind a lot of coastal counties when it comes to water quality.”
Across England 68 per cent of beaches are now rated ‘excellent’ for water quality, which is a slight improvement on last year’s figure of 66.5 per cent.
Check out the list of the ‘Brown Flag’ beaches below:
- Haverigg in Cumbria (Poocomer for 2026!)
- Coastguards Beach, Erme Estuary in Devon
- Lyme Regis Church Cliff Beach in Dorset
- Southsea East in Hampshire
- Dymchurch in Kent
- Littlestone in Kent
- Blackpool North in Lancashire
- Weston Main, Weston Super Mare Sand Bay and Weston Super Mare Uphill Slipway in Somerset
- Dunster Beach in Somerset
- Blue Anchor West in Somerset
- Bognor Regis, Aldwick in Sussex
- Worthing Beach House in Sussex
- Tynemouth Cullercoats in Tyne and Wear
- Littlehaven Beach in Tyne and Wear
- Scarborough South Bay in North Yorkshire
You can see the full list and more via the awards website here.
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Feature Image Credit: Photo © Sheila Tarleton (cc-by-sa/2.0)
