 published new guidance to make the application process 'clearer and more streamlined', but campaigners claim that the new regulations have made it much harder. One of the key changes is that communities will have to show that at least 100 swimmers a day use a stretch of river; the threshold was previously not made public. Another change is the requirement for toilets within 500 metres (1,640ft) of the site.){kind=link}
The government has been accused of “moving the goalposts” and giving communities a “kick in the teeth” after changing the rules for people trying to establish official swimming areas in rivers.
While hundreds of designated bathing waters around the UK coast are monitored for harmful bacteria in the summer, only three rivers in England have the same status.
Scores of Conservative MPs, The Times Clean It Up campaign and water companies have been calling for the creation of far more bathing waters around the nation’s rivers.
This week the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published new guidance to make the application process “clearer and more streamlined”, but campaigners claim that the new regulations have made it much harder.
One of the key changes is that communities will have to show that at least 100 swimmers a day use a stretch of river; the threshold was previously not made public. Another change is the requirement for toilets within 500 metres (1,640ft) of the site.