Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Where there's muck ... there is an empty beach?

Len Tingle Political Editor, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Forget those images conjured up by re-runs of Baywatch or the sounds of the Beach Boys.

Surfing the waves off the North Yorkshire coast in November is an altogether different experience.

Chilling water temperatures, difficult currents and highly unpredictable wave conditions make it an experience for the real enthusiast.

Surfing NY... a bit grittier than Surfing USA

Nick Noble, first took his board into the water at Sandsend near Whitby 25 years ago.

He became so hooked by the sport that he now runs his own surf equipment shop just up the coast at Saltburn.

Throughout the first two decades, those natural challenges in the North Sea were overshadowed by a much bigger threat as he explained to Politics Show's Len Tingle;

When I started, all the towns up and down this coast were discharging raw sewage into the sea through short outfalls that dated back to Victorian times so we were surfing in very polluted waters.

We often fell ill from surfing in these kinds of conditions.

Veteran Surfer who campaigned for better water quality

Nick joined the ecological pressure group Surfers Against Sewage which campaigned throughout the 80s and 90s for change.

The sewage companies, first publicly owned and later privatised monopolies like Yorkshire Water, Cumbrian Water and Severn Trent were slow to change their views.

Great improvements

Yet by the dawn of the 21st Century, they have all adopted a full treatment policy for the effluent they discharge into the North Sea, and after spending tens of millions of pounds, they are very close to achieving it.

£10s millions spent on upgrading coastal sewage treatment

Regular testing by the government's Environment Agency has confirmed the improvements.

Bathing water quality is now so much better that many of the most popular beaches in resorts like Scarborough, Whitby, Mablethorpe and Skegness now regularly qualify for the award of an annual Blue Flag the nationally-recognised standard for a beach where it is safe to swim.

Environment Agency tests every beach 20 times a year

But Yorkshire and the Humber Member of the European Parliament David Bowe is concerned that a new Europe-wide scheme being proposed could dismantle the success achieved on the UK's beaches.

The Smiley Beach system, being debated now, will mean far more testing and a much higher threshold of water purity to qualify for an award.

The Politics Show

More frequent testing is not the same as "Better" testing

David Bowe, a keen North Sea surfer himself, appears at the Politics Show live outside broadcast on Filey Beach this Sunday.

He explains that when it comes to testing for water quality more is not necessarily better.

He argues that it could see highly popular beaches disqualified from meeting the new standards for scientifically technical reasons that do not equate to any extra threat to swimmers.

He wants to stick to the Blue Flag system that he says is tried, trusted and understood by everyone.

Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Politics Show - full programme

Join presenter Cathy Killick for The Politics Show on BBC One on Sundays at Noon.

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