Camber Sands and Winchelsea Beach have both been given a Keep Britain Tidy Seaside Award. The accolade was given to 120 beaches across the UK.
Neither beach was successful in achieving the environmental group’s top award, the prestigious Blue Flag. 76 beaches across the country met the high standards required for a Blue Flag award – which is described as the world’s most recognised award for beaches, marinas and inland bathing waters.
In order to qualify, each area must meet and maintain a series of stringent environmental, educational, safety and accessibility criteria. Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, Allison Ogden-Newton said: “As an island community, the quality of our beaches and blue spaces is crucial to our environment and vital for our economy, particularly in terms of tourism and employment.”
Leader of Rother District Council, Doug Oliver, said the awards for the local beaches also includes Bexhill-on-Sea and Norman’s Bay. “The award celebrates the quality and diversity of Rother’s coastline and recognises safe, attractive and well-managed coastal area. It is testament to the efforts made by officers, contractors and volunteers to keep the coastline looking as good as possible.”
A Blue Flag is only presented to beaches and inland bathing waters with bathing water which has achieved the highest classification as set by the EU Bathing Water Directive and have an environmental education programme, while Seaside Awards are presented to the best beaches in England and celebrate the quality and diversity of our coastline.
Image Credits: Kt bruce .
Pleased to hear this, but are the toilets at Winchelsea Beach open? We used to enjoy yoga on the beach every summer until they were closed.
The Winchelsea Beach lavatory is closed, partly for financial reasons and partly because the building itself is in such a poor state. Last Monday Rother’s cabinet voted to proceed with a private sector proposal to install a mobile sauna with a condition that a lavatory is kept open for public use. That is subject to signing a commercial agreement, but I hope it will proceed quickly. See the cabinet agenda and draft minutes –
https://rother.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=153&MId=1052&Ver=4
All very well to lease these toilets out, what happens when the leaseholder packs up work at 5 pm,and doesn’t open on a Sunday,Pubs are being inundated with people using their toilets and buying nothing behind the bar,especially the Cinque ports Rye,because visitors will not use the disgusting toilets at station approach.