ESSEX has avoided being named and shamed at an annual water quality awards – but the data shows there is still a long way to go to clean up the county’s coastline.
The Brown Flag Awards are now in their third year and are organised by travel website HolidayParkGuru.co.uk. It analyses Environment Agency data from hundreds of beaches.
In total, 15 beaches in England have been given Brown Flags for 2026, including Southsea East beach, Blackpool and Weston Super Mare. That’s a slight drop on last year, when 19 beaches were top of the plops.
The dirtiest beaches are offered brown flags featuring a smiling poo emoji to warn bathers.
Good and bad news for Essex’s beaches
Whilst Essex didn’t win any Brown Flag Awards, it still lags behind most English counties on water quality at its beaches.
In total, just over half of Essex’s beaches (56%) have the highest rating possible for water cleanliness. That puts it in 11th place out of 19 English coastal counties.
However, there has been encouraging progress on summertime water cleanliness over the last year:
- Holland and Jaywick are now rated as ‘Excellent’ rather than ‘Good’
- Manningtree Beach is now rated as ‘Good’ rather than ‘Sufficient’
The less positive news is that Shoeburyness has been downgraded from an ‘Excellent’ beach for water cleanliness to one that is ‘Good’.
Essex is some way behind Northumberland, Dorset and Cornwall, which all have scores of 90% or higher.
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. However, Essex has avoided the shame of a Brown Flag Award and more than half of its beaches are rated as excellent. There’s plenty of room for improvement but Essex seems to be heading in the right direction.”
Across England as a whole, 68% of beaches are now rated ‘excellent’ for water quality, a slight improvement on last year’s figure of 66.5%.
At the current rate of progress, it would take until 2047 for every beach in England to reach the top standard.
Water quality is measured by the Environment Agency from May to September based on levels of bacteria such as E. coli, which can come from sewage, livestock, wildlife and surface water runoff.
HolidayParkGuru.co.uk created the Brown Flag Awards as a light-hearted campaign to raise awareness of water quality issues at England’s beaches. It does not have any official link to the Environment Agency.
The awards take place each year to coincide with the May Bank Holiday, when many families will be heading to the seaside.
A full list of Essex’s cleanest and dirtiest beaches can be found at: https://www.holidayparkguru.co.uk/brown-flag-awards
