What will look bad at first sight for some, is a classic example of misleading reporting of percentages. Scotland has 18 743 km of coastline compared to England’s 8 982, only one-tenth of the population and, crucially far fewer areas requiring monitoring.

Dr Simon Boxall of Southampton University, a leading expert on water quality, explained this in the National, in August 2022:

An overview of the most obvious data on bathing water quality superficially appears to show Scotland actually has poorer-quality bathing spots than England.

But this is only half the picture, according to one of the UK’s leading experts on water quality.

Scottish swimmers paddling in and around Scotland’s 18,743km coastline do enjoy cleaner water than those taking a dip down south, said Dr Simon Boxall, based at the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University.

Looking at the monitored “bathing waters” in Scotland paints a slightly misleading picture of overall water quality in the country, he told The National.

Compared with England, Scotland’s monitored swimming spots are poorer quality: just 38% of the 85 identified locations were recognised as “excellent” according to EU standards, compared with 71% of those in England.

Most of Scotland’s waters are not cause for concern, he said, meaning they did not need the same level of monitoring as takes place in England.

He added: “I would say Scotland does a better job [of monitoring] than England does.” 

“If we’re not going into some of the more remote parts, for example north-west Scotland, because there’s no need to, I know full well the beaches up there are phenomenally good,” he added.

“If they are focusing their efforts on areas which are likely to suffer from pollution, then they’ll get more positives – in terms of pollution – than if they are doing the fairly broad-sweep approach of looking at every 10km on the south coast of England.

“So, you are going to find patchiness – there are going to be parts of Scotland, if you look at the Clyde estuary for example where you’ve got a huge population, you’re going to have a higher level of pollution.”

“To be fair to Scotland, they’re actually not monitoring a lot of the areas which don’t need it,” he added.

“In England, they tend to take more of the, ‘we’ll do every, say 70km approach’.

“They’re bound to find more high-quality beaches because there are, particularly in the west coast of England, fewer potential inputs.”

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20833401.scotland-compare-england-water-beaches-closed-sewage-spills-south/

How clean is Scotland’s water?

A quick factcheck tells us:

The flows and levels in Scotland’s water environment are currently at good or better condition in 90% of rivers, lochs and groundwaters. This is up from 88% when we published the second RBMPs.https://www.environment.gov.scot/our-environment/water/scotland-s-freshwater/

Why is this the case?

Does Scotland show there is an alternative to this system? Scottish Water is a wholly public entity directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament. It offers lower bills than any of the English companies, and invests around 35% more in infrastructure. This is delivering results for the Scottish taxpayer and public.https://www.brexitspotlight.org/scottish-water-is-publicly-run-and-67-of-its-rivers-are-in-good-health-england-shows-this-isnt-a-coincidence/