Lincolnshire’s beaches are being praised for water cleanliness while England’s 19 dirtiest beaches are being named and shamed at the second annual Brown Flag Awards. UK travel site Holiday Park Guru analysed the Environment Agency’s annual summertime water quality data at hundreds of beaches to reveal the grubby ‘winners’.
The good news is that Lincolnshire has once again avoided winning any Brown Flag Awards in 2025, with all of its beaches rated as either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ for water cleanliness. 78% of Lincolnshire’s beaches are rated as ‘excellent’ for water cleanliness, putting it in fifth position compared to England’s other seaside counties. That’s an improvement on last year, when Lincolnshire was seventh best. Northumberland, Dorset and Devon make up the top three for clean beaches.
Brown Flag beaches: free flags to warn swimmers
The number of Brown Flag beaches leapt up from 13 in 2024 to 19 in 2025, an increase of 46%. The Brown Flag beaches are those rated as ‘poor’ by the Environment Agency due to bacteria such as e-coli from sewage and other waste. Previous winners that held onto their Brown Flags for 2025 include beaches in Heachem in Norfolk, Blackpool, Weston Super Mare and Bognor Regis.
Holiday Park Guru is once again offering free brown flags so that the 19 ‘winners’ can warn summer swimmers about their poor rating. Each flag is tastefully decorated with a poo emoji. Somerset was the only county that took up the generous offer of a free flag last year, as it was used by campaigners during a clean water protest.
There are also several newcomers (or should that be ‘Poocomers’?) that have won Brown Flags for the first time, including beaches in Worthing and Lyme Regis. Once again, Lancashire came bottom of the league table with none of its beaches being graded as ‘excellent’ for water cleanliness.
We had hoped that we’d be handing out fewer Brown Flags this year but things have gone down the pan. Congratulations to Lincolnshire, which has avoided winning any Brown Flag Awards for the second year in a row. About three quarters of beaches in Lincolnshire are rated as ‘excellent’ for their water quality in summer – including Mablethorpe, Sutton on Sea and Skegness. Do your research this summer and you’ll be saying “wish you were here” rather than “wish I’d worn a hazmat suit”.
The Brown Flag Awards winners 2025
The Brown Flag Awards are reserved for those select beaches that score a ‘poor rating’ from the Environment Agency’s water quality tests. Below is a selection of the 19 Brown Flag beaches (alphabetical by county, not in any order).
Newcomers are either newly designated bathing spots with a poor rating or existing bathing spots that have been downgraded. Three of Weston Super Mare’s testing locations are rated as ‘poor’. They’ve been awarded one Brown Flag Award to share as we’re not flushed enough to afford three flags.
It is worth noting that large resorts have several beaches and testing points, and it may just be one section of the beach that is designated as being ‘poor’.
County-by-county league table for clean beaches
For the 2025 county league table, Holiday Park Guru examined data from every designated bathing beach in England. They determined the percentage of beaches in each county that received the Environment Agency’s highest water cleanliness rating (three stars = excellent). The aim is to help UK holidaymakers assess the likelihood of swimming in a seaside resort with top-quality bathing water.
Northumberland ranks top, with more than 90% of its beaches being three-star stunners that achieve the highest score possible for water cleanliness. Dorset, Devon and Cornwall are also highly rated.
Once again, Lancashire is rock bottom of the county league table with none of its ten designated bathing spots achieving the Environment Agency’s coveted three-star excellent rating for cleanliness. Somerset, Cumbria, Merseyside and Kent are all in the bottom half of the league table.
The Isle of Wight, County Durham, Lincolnshire and Suffolk deserve praise, with all of their designated bathing areas gaining one of the top two ratings (‘good’ or ‘excellent’).
Percentage of beaches rated ‘excellent’ by the Environment Agency for sea water cleanliness are shown below. The top 10, from best to worst, along with their position last year:
How was the data gathered for the Brown Flag Awards?
Holiday Park Guru used Environment Agency data based on about 7000 samples at more than 400 bathing waters. It is “calculated annually based on samples from the previous four years”. They then excluded rivers and lakes and just focused on England’s beaches.
The water quality readings look for intestinal enterococci and escherichia coli (e-coli) levels to see whether there is faecal matter in the water. This comes from “sewage, agricultural livestock, wildlife, birds and road drainage” according to the Environment Agency.
Each bathing resort receives an official Environment Agency score: three stars (excellent), two stars (good), one star (sufficient) or zero stars (poor). Overall, 67% of England’s monitored resorts currently score a three star rating whilst 5% score zero stars. The latter is an increase on last year.
It is worth noting that water quality readings are only taken from 15 May-30 September. During the winter, water quality tends to be lower along England’s coastline as higher rainfall causes more sewage and waste water to overflow into the sea and into rivers.
Whilst Holiday Park Guru’s ‘Brown Flag Awards’ uses official Environment Agency data, it does not have any official link with the Environment Agency or any other awards. It is intended as a tongue-in-cheek award to support the campaign for cleaner beaches.
