Highland beaches recognised with Seaside Awards

Scotland’s beaches provide the perfect place for creating memories and having fun and today, 26 May 2010, awarding body Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), announced that eleven Highland beaches will fly Seaside Award flags above their sands this year, one in Nairn, two in Ross-shire and eight in Sutherland.  And with the weather hotting up for summer KSB is urging people to take a trip to an award beach and dip a toe in the sea or have a picnic and enjoy our beautiful Scottish beaches.

The Seaside Award programme has been recognising Scotland's best managed beaches for 18 years, and this year 56 beaches have achieved award status.

There are two categories to the Seaside Award, one which recognises the more rural nature of Scotland's beaches and a second which is given to resort beaches.  All Seaside Award winners, no matter which category they fall into must have well managed bathing water quality, good facilities where present, excellent litter management procedures, information provision and community involvement.  Adequate safety measures must also be in place.

The Highlands have received a Resort Seaside Award for Nairn for the 17th consecutive year and Rural Seaside Awards for Dornoch, which has been an award winner for an impressive 16 consecutive years and Achmelvich and Golspie which have both clocked up 10 years. Rural awards have also been given to Sutherland’s Brora Beach, Sango Bay in Durness, Embo Beach, Melvich Beach, Strathy Bay and in Easter Ross to Portmahomack and Shandwick Bay.

John Summers OBE, Chief Executive of KSB welcomed the announcement.  He said, “Over the last 10 years the number of Seaside Awards in Scotland has more than quadrupled, there were just 13 in 2000, so I would like to pay tribute to all the hard work that goes in to achieving and keeping these awards by Highland Council and the local communities. 

“I’d also like to encourage people, particularly in this economic climate, to make use of the fantastic beaches we have around the Scottish coast this summer and then let us know what they think of them by using our new exciting ‘score the shore’ rating system at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/coastal”.

Councillor Sandy Park, Convener of The Highland Council said: “Our beaches are major tourism attractions in the Highlands and keeping them attractive to visitors and locals is vital to the holiday and day-drip destination markets coming to our area. This is even more important this year within the current economic climate and likelihood of more people staying at home this year for their holidays due to the affects of volcanic ash clouds on air flights.”

A map showing all the award winning beaches with descriptions, directions, facilities and pictures can be found at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/coastal along with an option for people to rate their favourite award beaches.

Ends