End of Blue Flag for six Torbay beaches under new plan

Opting out of the international Blue Flag beach awards will give Torbay a better chance to promote its natural assets, councillors have decided.

But opponents say a new scheme created and administered in the bay itself amounted to ‘marking your own homework’, and would damage the English Riviera’s reputation.

“We are abandoning our ambition to be the UK’s premier resort,” said Cllr Darren Cowell (Ind, Shiphay). “This is selling tourism down the river.”

Torbay Council’s all-Conservative cabinet voted unanimously to leave the Blue Flag scheme, which has been running since 1985, recognising beaches with clean water and good facilities across Europe and beyond. Torbay currently has six Blue Flag beaches, at Breakwater, Broadsands, Meadfoot, Oddicombe, Preston and Torre Abbey Sands.

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But cabinet members heard that the scheme’s criteria have changed, making it impractical for Torbay to be a part of it any longer. Beaches must now have designated zones for swimmers, surfers, boarders and motor craft, a set-up ideal for long, sandy beaches but ‘unworkable’ for small coves like those in the bay.

Hardly any of the bay’s current Blue Flag beaches would keep the accolade under the new criteria, the meeting heard. It also costs around £260,000 to be part of the Blue Flag scheme.

Instead, if the full council agrees later this month, the bay will create its own English Riviera Beach Standards (ERBS) scheme, which promises double the amount of water testing carried out for the Blue Flag system.

A report to the meeting said the ERBS would be more appropriate, environmentally sensitive and cost-effective. The report added: “While the Blue Flag scheme has historically offered recognition, its increasingly prescriptive requirements no longer align well with Torbay’s diverse coastline, sensitive marine environments and operational realities.”

The board of the English Riviera BID, the bay’s tourist organisation, has given its full backing to the move away from the Blue Flags.

Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Churston with Galmpton) said complying with the new Blue Flag rules would mean barring some regular beach users such as boat owners from their favourite places as well as putting buoys in sensitive seagrass beds.

He said the ERBS would ‘allow Torbay’s beaches to shine on the national stage’.

Cllr Jackie Thomas (Con, Kings Ash) said the new scheme would raise standards rather than lowering them while Cllr Chris Lewis (Con, Preston) said it would be a ‘nightmare’ to have to cordon off beaches into zones.

And, said Cllr Martin Brook (Con, Collaton St Mary): “I think the Blue Flag lot have shot themselves in the foot. Places all over the country are going to pull out of the scheme.”

But Cllr Christine Carter (Lib Dem, Roundham with Hyde) questioned how tourists would find out about the high standards of Torbay beaches if they were not part of the well-known Blue Flag scheme, and Cllr Swithin Long (Lib Dem, Barton with Watcombe) said the decision would have severe implications for Torbay’s reputation and economy.

“This will be seen as Torbay Council marking its own homework,” he said. “People will choose to go elsewhere and our coastal neighbours in Devon will be laughing all the way to the bank.”