Camber beach wins a Blue Flag for the second time

The award recognises beaches with the very best facilities, life-saving equipment, clean water meeting EU Standards and immaculately clean sands.

Two of the five beaches in Sussex - one in Bognor Regis and one in Eastbourne - were first time winners.

The other three - Camber Sands, Littlehampton Coastguards and West Wittering retained their flags.

Popular resorts fail

The status was withheld again from some of the region's top resorts like Brighton and Hastings as they failed to reach the required standards for clean water, management and visitor facilities.

But the thumbs up was given to the beach between the pier and Wish Tower in Eastbourne, and to the beach east of the pier in Bognor Regis.

None of the beaches in West or East Sussex lost their blue flag status.

The environmental charity Encams said the new total of 122 clean beaches in Britain reflected an improvement of more than 600% over the past decade.

When Britain first joined the scheme in 1987, just 12 beaches were presented with the award.

This year's total puts it in eighth position in the European table - higher than top holiday locations including Croatia, Cyprus and Ireland.