Keep Britain Tidy has today (May 15) announced the winners of the Blue Flag and Seaside Awards for summer 2025- with Thanet achieving six Blue Flags and 12 Seaside Awards – with Ramsgate main sands reclaiming its Blue Flag after a nine year hiatus.
In Thanet Botany Bay, Joss Bay, Minnis Bay and St Mildred’s Bay keep their Blue Flag status and the isle gains two additional flags, compared to last year, for Margate and Ramsgate main sands. This is the first Blue Flag for Ramsgate Main Sands since 2016, and for Margate Main Sands since 2023. All the Blue Flag beaches also achieved Seaside Awards.
The Blue Flag is the world’s most recognised award for beaches, marinas and inland bathing waters and, to qualify, each applicant must meet and maintain a series of stringent environmental, educational, safety and accessibility criteria.
Seaside Awards were also achieved for West Bay, Westgate-on-Sea; Westbrook Bay and Walpole Bay, in Margate; and Stone Bay, Viking Bay and Louisa Bay in Broadstairs.
Cllr Steve Albon, Cabinet Member for Cleansing and Coastal Services, said: “We’re very proud of our six Blue Flags and 12 Seaside Awards. Having Blue Flags once again for the popular main beaches in Margate and Ramsgate is especially good news for Thanet.
“These awards are the result of a great deal of hard work to keep up the high standards of our beaches. Work goes on all year round, not just over the summer. Our fabulous beaches are one of the main reasons that people come to Thanet. Local people, as well as visitors, expect our 19 miles of coastline to be well-maintained and safe, and this year’s awards show that our beaches are meeting the standards that people look for.
“I would like to thank all of the council officers, partners, businesses, volunteers and residents, who work hard at keeping our beaches as clean and enjoyable as possible. These internationally-recognised awards would not be possible without their continued dedication.
“We are proud that whichever part of Thanet’s coastline you choose to visit you can find a well-managed, award-winning beach.”
Keep Britain Tidy’s Chief Executive, Allison Ogden-Newton OBE said: “The awards are a credit to the collective efforts of beach and site managers, volunteers, residents and businesses who should take pride today in their tireless efforts to maintain and improve some of our best-loved and most popular blue spaces.”
The Blue Flag and Seaside Awards are aimed at improving the quality of England’s coastline and blue spaces and promoting the country’s best beaches.
Blue Flag beaches are free for all to enjoy, with visitors able to experience the same quality as destinations like Spain or Trinidad and Tobago without the environmental impact – or price tag – of flying.
Blue Flag is an environmental education programme managed by Keep Britain Tidy on behalf of the Foundation for Environmental Education
Since these classifications are based on the EU Bathing Water Directive I assume our newly empowered Reform councillors will exercise our Brexit freedoms to classify all Thanet beaches as ‘Super Excellent, Beautiful. It doesn’t get better than this’ and allow us to ingest as much Intestinal Enterococci and E.coli as their water company chums can produce while we munch on super sized portions of chlorinated genetically modified two headed eight legged chicken pieces as our obese toddlers waddle around the sands staring at their mobile phones and we all keep an eye on the horizon for inflatable dinghies full of doctors, nurses and care workers so that we can lock them up.
Rule Brittania!
Blue Flag Beaces are a globally recognized eco-label awarded to beaches, marinas, and sustainable tourism boats that meet strict environmental, educational, safety, and accessibility criteria they are awarded by The Foundation for Environmental Education nothing to do with the EU so your pathetic snipe at Reform councillers is pointless and frankly sounds like the pathetic whinings of a sad loser.
You’re correct about the FEE but they base the award on meeting criteria in the EU Directive. Under the EU Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC), bathing waters are classified into four categories: Excellent, Good, Sufficient, and Poor, based on water quality monitoring results over a four-year period. That’s what we use.
I was only suggesting that we should now have our own, trust British criteria. I assume you’re not a patriot!
I certainly am patriotic but I really don’t understand why you would make this an issue over patriotism, Blue Flag Beaches are a worldwide recognised standard so why would you want to change that to a local (UK) standard. Can I respectfully suggest that you celebrate the award of the Blue Flags instead of nitpicking over who should award them.
Fair point. And I am delighted about the awards.
Personally myself i don’t eat seafood as it’s just 50% plastic or foul water waste .and most of Britain just pumps foul water into the sea .I’d definitely not swim in our seas . No matter what colour flags are raised . The only flag I want to see on our coastline is the union jack .
So our beaches are clean??? It’s just our streets that are too filthy to live in.
Given you can walk the coast and sea chem/sewage foam on all stretches at most times and folk regularly get seriously ill swimming in the rivers/sea round here, yeah nah.
Thankfully, visible and persistent sea foam is unlikely to be chemical pollution. The composition of sea foam is generally a mixture of decomposed organic materials, including zooplankton, phytoplankton, algae (including diatoms) bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and vascular plant detritus, though each occurrence of sea foam varies in its specific contents. In some areas, sea foam is found to be made up of primarily protein, dominant in both fresh and old foam, as well as lipids and carbohydrates.
I too can use AI to make an opinion for me
“Foam along the coastline, particularly in Thanet, can be a combination of natural phenomena and POTENTIAL SEWAGE DISCHARGES. While SOME foam is harmless, like that caused by algae breaking down, other sources, INCLUDING SEWAGE, can pose health risks”
Well, yes…but we wouldn’t have received Blue Flag accreditation if that was the case. I don’t think you used AI to make an opinion for you. I think you simply sought to justify your existing opinion.
Shame they Keep Britain Tidy dont walk our side streets.The drive into the food hall Sainsburys looks like a trip to the dump.McDonalds have litter strewn all over Thanet.The back streets not the seafront are full of litter.Dont think Albion rd Broadstairs has been swept since Ted Heath lived there.
When the large, new beach information sign by Ramsgate’s Boulevard Kiosk went up, the section regarding dogs stated “Dogs are not allowed on the beach between 10am and 6pm from 1 May to 30 September.” This contradicted legacy signage (and the council’s website) which states that dogs are not allowed on the beach at any time from May to September.
Recently someone has stuck some black tape over ‘between 10am and 6pm’. I presume this is official black sticky tape, as opposed to some local acting on their own initiative. Whichever it is, shame the powers-that-be couldn’t have just proof read the sign properly prior to its production and installation. Shame too that there is no policing of the dog restriction. Two weeks into May and I still see dogs on the beach, and just the other day my partner nearly trod barefoot into some dog mess that was on there.
Anyway, I’m pleased Ramsgate is now a blue flag beach again.
The Ramsgate map signage outside The Royal has Church Hill marked up as Broad Street. Not entirely helpful to the two museums on Church Hill. Seems that accuracy and proofreading weren’t considered!