Britain’s coastal waters have become less polluted over the past twenty years. Keith Jones of Lancaster University suggests that southern Europe, where bathing waters are warm and clear and exposed to intense sunlight, will have few problems in meeting the microbial standards of a revised EU Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) but, in the north-west of England, where the water is cold and turbid, and where there is less sunshine, compliance will be more difficult.