News 

Northern Ireland’s award-winning beaches and marinas have been revealed at a ceremony at The Stables in Groomsport, Co. Down.

Charity Live Here Love Here –recently rebranded from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful- manages the accreditations locally. Yesterday they announced 21 winning sites, spread across five council areas. Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council is home to more than half the winning sites - earning an impressive 11 awards in total. Other winning sites are spread across Ards and North Down, Belfast, Mid Ulster and Newry, Mourne and Down council areas.

Fourteen sites across Northern Ireland earned the iconic Blue Flag Award- one of the world’s most recognised awards for beaches and marinas. Winning sites met international standards in criteria such as safety, accessibility, cleanliness, environmental education and, for beaches, water quality.

This year, the awards focused on making our beaches accessible to everyone in the community. Ensuring that all in society can enjoy these magnificent spaces should be a priority for all of us.

A further seven beaches received Seaside Awards, the UK’s mark of quality that ensures visitors are guaranteed to find a clean, safe, attractive, and well-managed coastal stretch.

Eric Randall, CEO of Live Here Love Here, said:

“I want to warmly congratulate the 21 beaches and marinas that have won a Blue Flag or a Seaside Award this year. These awards are about celebrating all that is good in our marine environment and reminding the public about the importance of looking after our blue spaces. None of the progress we celebrate today would be possible without the work of our volunteers and officers in our councils.

This year was particularly special as we focused on ensuring our beaches are open to all parts of our community.”

Speaking at the ceremony, the Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir MLA, said: “Congratulations to all our winning beaches and marinas. These iconic awards demonstrate the hard work of councils, volunteers and operators in meeting and maintaining international standards. The awards assure residents and visitors alike that they are guaranteed to find a clean, safe, attractive and well-managed beach or marina to enjoy.

“My Department identifies the bathing waters most popular with swimmers. These sites are required to meet high water quality standards and are regularly monitored throughout the bathing season, which runs from 1 June to mid-September. The information is made publicly available to help bathers make informed decisions about when and where to swim. We also provide this data to Live Here Love Here to support their awards programme, which we are proud to celebrate today.

“I intend to launch a public consultation on the Bathing Waters Policy Review soon which will focus on key policy areas including the length of the bathing season, a potential risk-based monitoring approach, the criteria for identifying bathing waters, the use of candidate sites and the de-identification of sites.

“I encourage everyone with an interest to engage fully with this consultation to help shape a resilient and sustainable future for Northern Ireland’s bathing waters.”

Mayors from across councils and beach and marina operators, were invited to collect the awards.

Award-winning beaches will now have their respective flags in place for the bathing season. In the event that water quality is not safe for members of the public to swim in, Blue Flags and Seaside Awards Flags are lowered until the water is safe to swim in.

Blue Flag Marinas, which are not designated bathing waters, fly their flags all year round.