Pilot Programme For Budding Blue Flag Beaches

In South Africa, municipalities that are planning to enter beaches into the Blue Flag programme, have to implement at least one year of what is called a “pilot phase”. This pilot phase allows the municipality to put in place the necessary water quality monitoring and start to develop infrastructure (if necessary) and services that a full status Blue Flag beach would require.

For some beaches, the municipalities managing them take a full two years to go through the pilot phase. The most important aspect of the pilot phase is for the municipality to start testing the bathing water quality at that beach. This is one of the main reasons why beaches fail to make it into the Blue Flag programme – the water quality at the beach does not meet the international standards set by the Blue Flag programme.

Current Blue Flag pilot beaches are: Witsands (near Stilbaai), Kings beach and Pollok beach in Port Elizabeth, Cannon Rocks near Kenton in the eastern Cape, Umzumbe beach, Hibberdene beach and St Michael’s beach on the Kzn south coast.