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National Coastal
Tourism Academy
coastaltourismacademy.
co.uk
Brewing Brothers
brewingbrothers.org
Eden Project North
edenproject.com/new-
edens
Keep Britain Tidy
keepbritaintidy.org
England Coast Path
nationaltrail.co.uk/england-
coast-paththat the new development will
also encourage future generations
of locals to place added value on
their hometown. “Change in a
seaside resort is very hard to drive
locally at times,” says O’Neill.
“Young people who grow up here
often gravitate to cities, so it can
be difficult to build that impetus.”
Another priority, of course, is
the safeguarding of the coastal
environment itself. After Glasgow
hosted the COP26 Climate Change
Conference in late 20 21, it was
confirmed that 99% of Scotland’s
bathing waters met environmental
water-quality standards, the best
results since tighter regulations
were introduced in 2015. Over
roughly the same period, the
number of Blue Flag beaches
has risen from 61 to 76. However,
there’s still plenty of work to do.
“Great beaches are not just
about water quality,” says Allison
Ogden-Newton, the CEO of Keep
Britain Tidy, which manages
the Blue Flag project in the UK.
“They’re about cleanliness and
accessibility. The main thing
that affects the quality of a beach
in terms of its condition is the
behaviour of visitors. For example,
every year we see hundreds of
cheap, broken bodyboards being
left on beaches in the South
West. These bodyboards are an
environmental disaster if left at
the beach.” To combat this, the
charity has launched a scheme
enabling holidaymakers to
rent good-quality, sustainable
bodyboards for £1 per day.
She also sounds a further
note of caution. “Ultimately, the
responsibility for water quality
around our coast rests with the
water companies. We’d like to
see commitment and investment
from them, backed by a tough
legislative framework, to ensure
that as many beaches as possible
are free from pollution.”
Beaches, of course, make up
only a fraction of the nation’s
shoreline. From puffin-populated
clifftops and fossil-rich headlands
to fishing villages and secluded
islands, the coastline is many-
layered and varied. At the end of
2019, the government announced
that almost 30 million walks
had been made along England’s
coastal paths in the previous six
months. How it arrived at that
figure is anyone’s guess, but itmakes the ongoing, stage-by-
stage opening of the official,
2,795-mile England Coast Path
— following in the steps of the
spectacular Wales Coast Path,
which was unveiled in 2012 — a
prospect with serious potential.
Which brings us back to
the sheer scale of the British
coastline. Way up in the
northwest of Scotland, where the
extremity of the mainland meets
the wild ocean, lies the dune-
backed strand of Sandwood Bay.
Often touted as one of the most
stunning beaches in Europe, its
mile-long sandy crescent also
forms part of a national Site of
Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
But when, in 2021, the World
Wildlife Fund UK released the
results of a large-scale survey
into Britain’s best beaches, the
top 10 was populated by other
worthy contenders: the golden
sands of St Ives, the famous
seafront at Brighton, the rugged
coves around Tenby. Top spot
went to the cliff-edged beaches in
and around Bournemouth. And
Sandwood Bay? Not even in the
top 50. There’s a lot of seaside out
there to explore.Left: Bass Rock Lighthouse
surrounded by gannets,
off the North Berwick
coast in Scotland