SCOTLAND'S BEACHES have this summer suffered the worst sewage pollution in six years, according to new figures released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

Seven officially designated bathing waters have failed the basic safety limits, along with seven other popular beaches. The failure rate is the highest since 2001, as is the average level of faecal contamination.

And there is worse to come. Predictions by Sepa suggest that a further nine bathing areas will breach tough new European standards due to be introduced over the next few years.

"In the 21st century it is utterly unacceptable that anyone should face the prospect of swimming at a beach where the water is so awful that it might make them ill," said Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland.

"With the imminent introduction of even tougher standards, the government needs to sort this out rapidly to avoid a major embarrassment."

High levels of sewage can give paddlers, swimmers and surfers stomach and ear infections. In extreme cases, these can be lethal. Successive governments and regulatory agencies have been trying for three decades to curb the pollution, which comes from untreated human sewage and from animal faeces washed off the land.

Four of the seven official bathing waters that have failed this year are on the Ayrshire coast, at Irvine, Prestwick, Girvan and Ayr. The other three are Ettrick Bay on the Isle of Bute, Sandyhills on the Solway Firth and Eyemouth on the Borders coast.

Three of the seven popular undesignated beaches that failed are in Fife, with others in Angus, Moray, Ayrshire and East Lothian. Four of the nine bathing waters predicted to fail in the future are in Dumfries and Galloway, with three in Aberdeenshire, one in Edinburgh and one in Ayrshire.

Sepa accepted the results were "poor" but blamed them on the fact that this summer was the wettest in more than 30 years. Rain washes animal faeces off the land and can cause sewers to overflow.

"The weather has been mostly responsible for short pollution events, which resulted in poor samples," said Sepa's bathing water expert Calum McPhail. But he pointed out that 29 of Scotland's 61 designated bathing waters had still managed to achieve the highest standard.

He also said that sewage breakdowns had prompted "swift enforcement action", and that Sepa was hoping to tackle farm pollution with the introduction of new, binding rules.

Signs put up by Sepa at 10 beaches had been successful in warning people of pollution problems, McPhail added. "Sepa would like to see this rolled out to many more identified beaches once funding is available," he said.

But according to the Marine Conservation Society, this year's heavy rain was a result of global warming and could soon be the annual norm. "If you look at long-term predictions for climate change, it's a situation that we may have to get used to," said coastal pollution officer Thomas Bell.

He called for improvements to sewage outfalls and added: "There is also a need for targeted investment in combined sewer overflows and sustainable urban drainage systems to reduce the periodically severe impact of storm pollution running into rivers and the sea."

Bell pointed out that the new European Bathing Water Directive would introduce minimum water quality standards 20 times more stringent than those of today, and could cause up to a third of Scotland's beaches to fail. "The difficulties in overcoming this compliance problem by 2015 should not be underestimated," he warned.

Environment minister Michael Russell accepted that this year's results were "disappointing", but he too blamed the heavy rain for causing so many bathing waters to breach safety limits.

"What we now need to do is to take steps to reduce the risk of this happening again," he said. "I want to see a Scotland-wide return to the quality bathing water we have come to expect."