ABSTRACT
Ayrton and Oldridge (1987) have stated that clean recreational waters are of primary importance to the continued economic growth of Britain’s coastal resorts. They reported over 66 million tourist nights at the seventeen top resort towns in the United Kingdom for the 1985 season. At Scarborough, which accounted for 4 million tourist nights, some 59 per cent of the town’s 32,600 jobs were dependent upon the tourist industry. Resort towns now perceive the quality of their coastal bathing water as an important element in their marketing strategy. This was stressed in evidence presented to the 1985 House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee investigations into coastal sewage pollution in Wales when it was stated that:
Those authorities that have designated EEC beaches are now promoting them. They are using them as part of their tourist promotion. This places Wales in a position of disadvantage. The extent to which it influences the public is not certain but as time goes on I suspect the public will become more and more aware of pollution problems and will be likely to give greater and greater credence to those authorities who advertise that they have ‘Eurobeaches’
(House of Commons 1985b:154) The public health risk from sewage-contaminated bathing waters is difficult to quantify. British authorities have always suggested that there is no risk of contracting serious illness unless the waters are so
fouled as to be aesthetically revolting (PHLS 1959; MRC 1959; WO 1985; WRC 1985; WWA 1985). This view is based upon a retrospective examination of serious or ‘notifiable’ illnesses which could be attributed to bathing in sewage-polluted sea water in the period 1953-58. In North America prospective epidemiological studies have established a statistically significant link between water quality and patterns of bather morbidity. These epidemiological studies have formed the basis of water quality standards designed to prevent disease transmission which are widely applied throughout North America (Cabelli et al. 1975, 1976, 1982, 1983; Dufour 1982, 1983, 1984; Canadian Government 1983; Cheung et al. 1988; Lightfoot 1989; New Jersey Department of Health 1988; Seyfried et al. 1985a, b; Shuval 1986). There have been several recent calls for a replication of the North American prospective epidemiological studies in the United Kingdom in order to provide a firm scientific base for the definition of recreational water quality standards for British coastal waters (ADC 1985; Evison 1985; Stanfield 1982; Kay and McDonald 1986a; Jones and Kay 1989). The first pilot of a UK prospective study was conducted in the summer of 1987 by Brown et al. (1987) but no fullscale studies have yet been attempted.
