BATHING water quality was on the agenda at a recent conference in Lancashire.

Delegates from across the North West gathered at County Hall, Preston for "Reach For Your Beach" -- this year's North West Bathing Water Forum conference.

Conference delegates discussed current bathing water quality, future trends and scientific developments.

Organisations such as United Utilities, the Tidy Britain Group and the Environment Agency were represented at the conference.

This comes after EU officials announce long-standing legal action against Britain for failing to meet Europenan bathing water standards may now be dropped after tests off beaches along the Fylde coast produced their best ever results.

County Councillor Doreen Pollitt, deputy leader of Lancashire County Council, said: "Lancashire County Council started campaigning to clean up bathing waters along the North West shoreline over ten years ago.

The success of that campaign can be seen in the greatly improved standards we are now achieving.

"However, we still need to do more. This conference brought together a wide variety of organisations and individuals who are working in partnership to reach a single goal and the good news we received on bathing water standards will encourage us to continue to work towards achieving even higher standards."