Brixham for the Visitor

Torbay beaches get a thumbs up

Torbay's beaches have received a resounding thumbs up in a recent survey carried out by Torbay Council.

Nearly 300 visitors and residents chose to take part in the annual beach survey carried out last summer with issues ranging from barbeques to beach huts, car parks to cafes.

Of those taking part 98 percent rated Torbay's beaches as good or very good. Cleanliness also featured highly with 98 percent recognising that the beaches were clean, compared to 87 percent the year before, and all but three people saying that the promenades were kept tidy. However, whilst it was generally agreed that there is adequate toilet provision 20 percent stated that the quality of the toilets was actually poor.

The importance of Blue Flag status was apparent with 51 percent saying it was a very important factor for them when visiting a beach in Torbay and 62 percent stated that cleanliness was also very important.

Beach staff were rated highly with 92 percent saying they were very good and 98 percent felt safe when using the beach.

Total support was shown for the current summer dog bans and more than three quarters of those surveyed found the public information boards useful whilst 55 percent of respondents said they would like to see more showers.

The use of barbeques featured highly in this latest survey with 70 percent saying that it was inappropriate to use them on beaches during the day. However, 43 percent thought the council should find a specific place for them on beaches, promenades and in parks.

Torbay's trademark beach huts received positive feedback with 90 percent of beach hut owners believing that the quality of services provided to them was good and 66 percent rating the cost of beach huts as good value for money.

Cabinet Member Councillor Jeanette Richards said: "It has been a really exciting 12 months with five of Torbay's beaches receiving national Blue Flag status and ten appearing in the Marine Conservation Society's Good Beach Guide and these latest survey results are the icing on the cake.

"It is really satisfying to see that once again the high quality of Torbay's beaches has been recognised. I am particularly delighted to see that there has been an increase in the number of people who feel the beaches and surrounding areas are clean, particularly at a time when a cleaner, greener, safer Bay is at the top of our agenda.

"The council's team work extremely hard to ensure that the beaches remain at a high standard and the challenge now will be to continue this pace of improvement concentrating on areas that have been highlighted as needing further attention.

"We are already ahead of the game in some areas. Last year we installed new showers at Preston Beach and plan to install more in the future. We have also installed 25 super-sized litter bins at prime locations, and we provided several recycling banks so that beach-goers could dispose of recyclable plastic bottles, drinks cans, newspapers and magazines."