New Bathing Water Directive
For a number of years the European Union struggled to agree a new bathing water directive to replace Council Directive 76/160/EEC concerning the quality of bathing water. A new directive was finally agreed: Directive 2006/7/EC of 15 February 2006 concerning the management of bathing water quality repealed Directive 76/160/EEC.
Directive 2006/7/EC(.PDF 408Kb)
This directive was implemented in 2008. This requirement was achieved in Northern Ireland with the implementation of the Quality of Bathing Water (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008. Details are given at the end of this page.
The purpose of Directive 2006/7/EC is to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and to protect human health by complementing Directive 2000/60/EC. Directive 2000/60/EC established a framework for community action in the field of water policy.
Information about Directive 2000/60/EC ('The Water Framework Directive')
The new bathing water directive lays down provisions for:
- The monitoring and classification of bathing water quality
- The management of bathing water quality
- The provision of information to the public on bathing water quality.
It is the requirement for management of bathing quality and the provision of information to the public on bathing water quality which differs greatly from the original 1976 bathing water directive. The first classification of bathing water quality carried out in accordance with Article 4 of the new directive must be completed by the end of the 2015 bathing season.
The application of the new directive is still in the early stages of discussion in the UK and what actions will need to be taken to comply with it have not been fully ironed out. Regarding the implementation of the directive, Member States were required to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with the directive by 24 March 2008.
Classifications in accordance with the new directive must be carried out by 2015. Assessments of predicted water quality of Northern Ireland's identified bathing waters as given in Annex 1 and Annex 2 of Directive 2006/7/EC have been carried out.
Bathing water assessment and classification is carried out in accordance with Article 4 of the new directive and the 'assessment period' refers to data from the last four bathing seasons to determine compliance or otherwise.
Compliance will be assessed and reported using the existing directive until 2014 but will run in parallel with the new directive from 2012.
The Quality of Bathing Water (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008
The requirements of the revised Bathing Water Directive have been transposed into local legislation by the Quality of Bathing Water Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008 (Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland 2008 No. 231) and are now in operation in accordance with regulation 1.
An electronic copy of these Regulations is available from the Office of Public Sector Information website.
