Your Say

06/02/2006
Tories flag up beach victory
Western Mail

Tourism and farming are inextricably linked. Every year thousands of tourists flock to Wales to enjoy the stunning countryside and coastline, with big economic benefits for the rural economy.

But this healthy relationship faced a new threat recently when the EU's Bath- ing Water Directive was updated. The directive simplifies and updates existing legislation from 1976, but some MEPs, mainly from the Greens, were intent upon extending the scope of the directive.

This would have included vast swathes of sea, rivers and lakes which would be used only for recreational purposes such as windsurfing and canoeing. The costs of testing these recreational waters would have been passed down to consumers through much higher water bills.

But thanks to the Conservatives, these updated EU rules will no longer pose a threat to Wales' tourist industry or push water bills through the roof.

Bathing water will now be ranked in three categories of cleanliness - excellent, good and sufficient. Conservative MEPs fought off an attempt to delete the 'sufficient' category from the directive.

This would have caused a number of Wales's beaches, of which 33 have Blue Flag status, to fail to meet the 'good' standard despite being safe for bathers. The beaches could have subsequently lost their Blue Flag status with a notable impact on tourist revenues for the area.

The European Parliament's vote means that further astronomical water bill rises in Wales have been avoided, and damaging downgrades in bathing beach quality designations are off the agenda.

The directive we have helped negotiate with EU Ministers is sensible and proportional. We need clean beaches in Wales but we can do so at a reasonable cost. Water companies have already spent billions of pounds cleaning our beaches and standards are much better. However, we must remember that the majority of people use our beaches only a few times each year and it is not sensible to ask everyone to suffer increases in their water bills to pay for an unnecessary army of recreational water inspectors.

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