Torbay will leave Blue Flag beaches scheme

It will be replaced by its own scheme

Torbay has finally decided to haul down the coveted Blue Flags it won as part of a long-running international project and go it alone.

The Blue Flags flying over bay beaches will be replaced by Torbay’s own English Riviera Bathing Standards (ERBS) flags as a new scheme replaces the old.

Torbay has been the UK’s leading resort for Blue Flags almost since the scheme first started in the mid-1980s, but changes in the criteria for the award of a flag mean the bay has been forced to pull out.

There was an outcry when Torbay Council’s Conservative administration first announced its intentions to stop competing for Blue Flags, which highlight not only water quality but also top-quality beach facilities.

Opponents said the English Riviera’s reputation would suffer, and the council would look as if it was ‘marking its own homework’ by setting up its own awards for its own beaches.

Opposition councillors ‘called in’ the administration’s decision for a grilling at a meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee, but after a lengthy debate they had to concede that the council had no choice but to leave the Blue Flag scheme.

Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Furzeham with Churston) told colleagues: “We all want to allow residents and visitors to get the maximum levels of assurance about our water quality.”

He said the new ERBS would provide more frequent and rigorous water testing than a revised Blue Flag system which now called for beaches to be ‘zoned’ for different users with large segregated areas. The new criteria no longer suited Torbay’s trademark small coves and compact beaches, he said.

“We are here because Blue Flag is ideally set up for long, sandy beaches that can be separated into areas for different uses,” he said. “Trying to apply that system in Torbay would be a logistical challenge.”

He said at a beach like Oddicombe, which is 180 metres long, some users would have to be excluded so others could be accommodated. Gently-sloping Broadsands beach would need hundreds of metres of buoys to mark out its zones.

He went on: “The ERBS is a really sensible way of allowing the excellent water quality at our beaches to be communicated to residents and visitors.”

And, he said, the English Riviera BID Company, which represents the local tourism industry, had been highly supportive.

Cllr Darren Cowell (Ind, Shiphay) said the ‘11th hour’ decision was being taken without consulting the tourist trade properly, and Cllr Cordelia Law (Lib Dem, Tormohun) added: “With so much focus on pollution in our seas at the moment, is now the right time to be ditching our membership of the Blue Flag scheme?”

But Cllr Martin Brook (Con, Collaton St Mary) said: “We’ve got 25 beaches in Torbay, and I think this new scheme can help us celebrate and market them in a much better way than we can currently.”

And Cllr Mark Spacagna (Con, Cockington with Chelston) added: “There isn’t going to be any negative change that I can see.”

The committee eventually voted unanimously to take no further action over the ‘call-in’, meaning that the original move to leave the Blue Flag scheme and set up the ERBS instead will go ahead. Work will now begin to roll out the scheme ahead of the 2026 summer season.

Six Torbay beaches currently hold Blue Flags – Breakwater, Broadsands, Meadfoot, Oddicombe, Preston and Torre Abbey Sands.