Sir Robert Goodwill on Scarborough South Bay water quality in Parliament 19.10.23

Sir Robert Goodwill has raised the issue of South bay's lack of blue Flag status in Parliament

Transcript

00:00 South Bay is one of the 7% of bathing waters that does not get a blue flag. North Yorkshire

00:07 Council recently convened a taskforce, including local politicians, the Environment Agency,

00:13 Yorkshire Water and others, including academics from Durham University, to look at the problem.

00:18 What became very clear is that it is not as simple as many people think. Discharges are

00:22 coming from further north, around the bay, but also pathogens were picked up not only

00:27 from human effluent but from seabirds, dogs and ruminants. Will the Minister take a personal

00:34 interest in the work that is going on, because lessons learned in Scarborough may well apply

00:37 around the country?

00:38 I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. He highlights that this is just not as simple as people

00:43 think. That is why our plan for water is holistic. It takes a holistic approach to tackling all

00:50 sources of pollution into water. It is also why we launched and increased our £34 million

00:58 slurry fund to help farmers reduce the pollution that they may inadvertently put into the water

01:03 courses.