This isn't my rant...

But it's still one I thought worthy of mention...

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) today asks why both the UK Government and Scottish Government are proposing a 50% cut in water quality testing when official figures for 2007, also released today, show a ten-fold increase in official UK coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards compared to 2006.

MCS believes that the number of failures will rise still further when unofficial sites are included in its Good Beach Guide 2008, published next May.

Government figures released today on UK bathing water quality for Summer 2007 show that the number of official coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards rose from 2 in 2006 to 20 in 2007.

- Thomas Bell, MCS Coastal Pollution Officer

There you go. There's no doubt some more blurb on this at the Marine Conservation Society's webby site if you need more information.

For those of you concerned that I'm going to turn into a hippy - don't worry, I'm just off to watch bambi's mother die on a 72" widescreen telly. That always perks me right up.