Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to increase the involvement of voluntary and citizen science groups in bathing water monitoring programmes.

The Environment Agency has carried out a number of initiatives involving citizen scientists. For bathing waters it has recently rolled out the ‘Hello lamppost’ initiative where people can scan QR codes at specific bathing waters to provide it with information on the number of bathers at that location as well as get access to customised AI driven responses to any questions they have. It is also considering how to develop the Blueprint initiative which allows anyone with a smartphone to provide it with information linked to the water body they are at.