Weston Super Mare shows off its Brown Flag Award!

We had some success recently with our first ever Brown Flag Awards. The aim was to highlight the best and worst places to swim in the sea when you are on holiday in England, by using Environment Agency data.

We picked out the 13 beaches with the dirtiest water and offered them Brown Flags, as well as praising areas with excellent quality water. Areas that rated particularly well for clean swimming water in summer included Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Suffolk and the Isle of Wight. See the full results on the Brown Flag page.

Dozens of local newspaper websites and bloggers reported on the campaign, as well as a handful of national outlets including The Mirror, Time Out and The Daily Star. The BBC also gave a (very) brief mention to the brown flag awards.

Weston Super Mare deserves a special mention. We were contacted by local campaigner Debbie, who took their brown flag award to a Paddle Out Protest.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the campaign so far! We plan to study the numbers in 2025 - hopefully we will be giving out fewer Brown Flags next year!

Our Brown Flag Award at the Paddle Out protest in Weston Super Mare