The revised Bathing water Directive (rBWD 2006/7C) introduced by the European Union has brought a new classification system with much tougher water quality standards as well as an emphasis on providing information to the public. It has four levels of classification – excellent, good, sufficient and poor. Hastings had been identified as one of the 25 UK beaches at risk of failing to meet revised bathing water quality standards.
It was clear from the outset that this was not going to be an easy fix and also quickly obvious that this was not a challenge that could be tackled alone.
Southern Water commissioned MWH to carry out a detailed review of all the historic investigations in Hastings in 2014 and prioritised areas of the catchment for further research.
Various sources of pollution were putting the population and historic town of Hastings at risk of failing the stringent new standards demanded by the revised Bathing Water Directive. MWH’s Rob McTaggart explains how effective collaboration led to a successful outcome for the Hastings Bathing Waters Scheme to WWT Wet News magazine in this published article ‘Stopping Hastings falling foul of the revised BWD rules‘.
Click the image below to read the article in its entirety.
