Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir has opened the Better Beaches Forum at the Crawfordsburn Countryside Centre in Northern Ireland.
The Forum is led by DAERA and is a collaboration between all of those with a role in managing Northern Ireland’s beaches and bathing waters. During the opening afternoon, the Forum considered how to simplify the messages and improve service for the public, how to deal with marine wildlife strandings and the investigative work on pollution at Ballyholme.
Opening the event, the Minister said:
“It’s great to be here at the Better Beaches Forum in Crawfordsburn Country Park, and it’s been fantastic to engage with a range of stakeholders about the issues we’re working collaboratively to address. The Forum plays an important role in the overall goals of improving water quality, facilities managements and signage.
“We should be encouraged by the good performance of our bathing waters in 2024 with all coastal sites meeting the standards, despite the gloomy weather. I want to thank you, as our partners in delivering the bathing water programme to ensure good information for bathers and the Northern Ireland public. I am also particularly interested to hear about the excellent collaborative working to improve bathing water quality at Ballyholme. It is very good news that Ballyholme bathing water, having failed to reach minimum quality in the last two years, has met the standards in 2024. I want to thank our partners in NI Water and AFBI for your work with my Department to get to the source of the problem. This is the type of approach we need to take to improve water quality across Northern Ireland and in Lough Neagh.”
