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Five council areas rewarded for excellent environmental management

The local winners of the international Blue Flag Award and the UK-wide Seaside Award have been revealed for 2023. 

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful announced that 18 beaches and marinas at home earned the prestigious Blue Flag Award distinction after reaching world-class standards in criteria that includes water quality, safety, accessibility, cleanliness and environmental education.

A further nine beaches received Seaside Awards, the UK’s mark of quality that ensures visitors are guaranteed to find a clean, safe, attractive and well-managed coastal stretch. Seven Seaside Award sites returned excellent water-quality results, while two more rated as good, the second highest classification in this area.

The benchmarks for blue spaces were shared across councils, with Causeway Coast and Glens claiming 12 awards and Mid and East Antrim landing three Blue Flags and three Seaside Awards. 

There were also five flags for aquatic spots in Ards and North Down, and three wins for beaches in Newry, Mourne and Down. Ballyronan Marina in Mid Ulster retained its Blue Flag status for the 14th consecutive year.

Dr Ian Humphreys, CEO of Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful said:

"We are extremely pleased that 27 beaches and marinas have achieved either a Blue Flag Award or Seaside Award. Each flag is a symbol that these special places are managed to an excellent standard and an important trust signal to the public that they can expect a high-quality experience when they visit one of these award-winning sites.

"At a time when budgets are tight and difficult decisions are never far away, we want to thank councils and other organisations for continuing to invest in our beaches and marinas that are much loved and valued by tourists and people at home alike."

Owen Lyttle, DAERA’s Director of Marine and Fisheries said “We are delighted to see so many beaches and marinas awarded for their excellent environmental management. The assessment of water quality is a core component of these Awards and highlights that Northern Ireland continues to have some of the cleanest beaches and marinas in the world. We will keep working with all those who help to manage these valuable blue spaces to ensure that Northern Ireland continues to have beaches and marinas we can be proud of.”

Beach and marina operators and Mayors from across councils were invited to collect the awards at a presentation ceremony in The Arcadia, Portrush on 25 May. The occasion was organised by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, who manage the accreditations locally. 

The award-winning locations will now have their respective flags in place for the duration of the Northern Ireland bathing season, which runs from 01 June to 15 September.

To see the full list of Blue Flag Award and Seaside Award winners, visit www.keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org

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Notes for editors

1. Blue Flag Beach Award winners – Benone Beach, Castlerock Beach, Cranfield Bay, Downhill Beach, Murlough Beach, Portrush East Strand Beach, Portrush West Strand Beach, Tyrella Beach, Whiterocks Beach.

2. Blue Flag Marina Award winners – Blue Flag Award Marinas winners – Ballycastle Marina, Ballyronan Marina, Bangor Marina, Carrickfergus Marina, Coleraine Marina, Glenarm Marina, Portglenone Marina, Portrush Harbour and Marina, Rathlin Marina.

3. Seaside Award winners – Ballycastle Beach, Ballygally Beach, Ballywalter South Beach, Brown's Bay Beach, Carnlough Beach, Cloughey Beach, Groomsport Beach, Millisle Beach, Waterfoot Beach.

4. Northern Ireland’s bathing water quality is monitored by DAERA Marine and Fisheries Division during the bathing season. The bathing season runs from 01 June through to 15 September, during which time water quality is assessed on 20 different occasions at each location.

5. Bathing water is monitored at 26 sites in Northern Ireland, with results classified as excellent, good, sufficient or poor.

6. In 2023, 18 out of 26 bathing-water sites received either a Blue Flag Award or Seaside Award

7. Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful is a charity working towards the vision of a world where people and nature thrive, by running environmental-education programmes and awareness-raising campaigns, increasing volunteering opportunities and reporting on local environmental quality. Programmes include the national civic-pride campaign Live Here Love Here, Tackling Plastic NI, Tackling Textiles, Carbon Literacy training, and local environmental quality programmes, such as Eco-Schools NI, Blue Flag Award, Seaside Award, Green Flag Award, Cleaner Neighbourhoods and Marine Litter surveys. For more information, visit www.keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org.

For further information about the Blue Flag Award and Seaside Award, please contact Claire Irwin at claire.irwin@keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org

Environmental charity Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has developed a new plastics guide to encourage all schools in Northern Ireland to eliminate their use of single-use plastics.

The free resource, entitled ‘How to remove pointless plastics from your school’, asks senior leaders in schools to swap items such as plastic bags, straws, bottles and food packaging in favour of sustainable alternatives, and invites them to start a conversation with pupils about the effects discarded plastics have on the environment and wildlife.

Chris Gourley, Waste and Pollution Solutions Strategic Lead at Keep NI Beautiful comments, “We do not expect schools to be totally plastic-free. Our aim is tackle the single-use plastic: the unnecessary paraphernalia that’s everywhere. It’s these throwaway plastic items that are having a huge impact on our environment, and with some simple changes in schools, they can be eradicated.”

So how can teachers begin to make a difference? The guide explains how starting a conversation with pupils can really have a big impact. Already in Northern Ireland schools such a St Colm’s Draperstown and Willowbridge School in Enniskillen have harnessed their pupil power and implemented changes through the charity’s Eco-Schools NI programme, cutting their use of plastic cutlery in canteens and using refillable drinks bottles.

Funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), the booklet is designed to enable schools to make a difference to plastic pollution as soon as possible. There are five practical steps to follow so that schools can cut down on the amount of plastic that is used inside and outside of the classroom, helping to create a cleaner, greener environment.

Chris continues, “We want to support teachers in enthusing and preparing our young people to solve the plastic-pollution challenge, while helping their schools and local environment to become plastic-waste free.”

The guide can be downloaded from https://bit.ly/41XvZor

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For more information contact:

Maria McLaughlin

Tackling Plastic Communication Officer

maria.mclaughlin@keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org

www.keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org

Notes to editors

Included picture of cover of new e doc for schools

Plastic Facts

1. 81% of litter found on NI beaches in 2021 was plastic.

2. Over 7.5 billion tonnes of plastic has never been recycled. If measured in plastic bottles, this could cover the whole of NI (CIWM)

3. Single-use plastics are in people's lives for an average of 2 minutes.

4. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 6 times the size of the UK! This is just 1 of 5 plastic patches in our oceans (The Ocean Cleanup).

5. There could be more plastic in our sea than fish by the year 2050 (Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

6. 100,000 marine mammals & turtles are killed by marine plastic pollution every year (KIMO).

About Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful is a charity working towards the vision of a world where people and nature thrive, by running environmental-education programmes and awareness-raising campaigns, increasing volunteering opportunities and reporting on local environmental quality. Programmes include the national civic-pride campaign Live Here Love Here, Tackling Plastic NI, Tackling Textiles, Carbon Literacy training, and local environmental quality programmes, such as Eco-Schools NI, Blue Flag Award, Seaside Award, Green Flag Award, Cleaner Neighbourhoods and Marine Litter surveys. For more information, visit www.keepnorthernirelandbeautiful.org.

About Eco-Schools NI

Eco-Schools is a programme for environmental management, certification and sustainable development education for schools. Eco-Schools was developed in 1994 on the basis of the need for involving young people in finding solutions to environmental and sustainable development challenges at the local level. The programme was initiated by member organisations of the Foundation for Environmental Education with the support of the European Commission. Eco-Schools shares the same methodology and concept across 74 participating countries and with 20 million participating students, and is identified by the Eco-Schools and Green Flag logos. Northern Ireland was the first country in the world to award a Green Flag to one of its schools. Visit www.eco-schoolsni.org for further information.