Do we know true scale of pollution in UK waters?

Is our bathing water more polluted than we think? We’ve seen documents which show that almost twice as many English bathing waters would fail pollution tests – if the regulator wasn’t legally allowed to disregard some of the worst results.

Papers and emails show Government officials were also worried about negative press and wanted pollution incidents to be “better presented”. But the environment agency warned some options they gave could look like ‘greenwashing’.

The Government and the agency insist it’s perfectly above board and follows scientific best practice, but campaigners want the system to change, insisting public safety should come first.