What are bathing waters?
A simple definition: a bathing water is an area of surface water where it is expected that large numbers of people will 'bathe'.
For us, that means coastal waters. When you visit one of the beaches of the North East, you'll very likely visit a bathing water area.
32 of 34 bathing waters in the North East meet excellent or good standards
So, where are these bathing waters?
Our 34 bathing waters are found as far up as Berwick, all the way down to Saltburn, Teesside. That's nearly 100 miles of coastal waters.
We've got a map, which will show you where all the bathing waters are, and give you real-time information on our combined storm overflows.
How can I help protect our bathing waters?
The most helpful thing we can all do, is make sure we don't put more pressure on our sewer system.
By only putting pee, paper and poo down the loo, we can make sure our sewer systems can handle the work we give them.
Littering is another big issue for our drains, sewers and beaches. Keep our communities clean and tidy, and put litter in the bin. If there isn't a bin nearby, take your rubbish home and bin it there.
Useful resources
There are a number of organisations, committed to protecting our environment.
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