Britain’s beaches are cleaner than ever but they still cannot compete with Mediterranean or Aegean countries, according to EU figures released yesterday.

Only two out of 567 British beaches repeatedly failed spot checks for bacteria in the water last summer, down from ten the previous year, making it the best year for meeting basic European standards.

But while four in five British beaches received the top European grading, in Greece not one of 2,047 resorts failed the test, with 96.9 per cent classed as excellent.

Cyprus could also claim to have Europe’s best beaches, with 99 of its 100 resorts classed as excellent.

“I would have no hesitation in getting into the water at most beaches in Britain,” said Thomas Bell of the Marine Conservation Society. “The vast majority of them are great and they have come on in leaps and bounds. But there is still a distance to be travelled.”

The number of British beaches given the top grade by the European Commission fell last summer from 83.7 per cent to 80.4 per cent.

Britain rated 13th for the number of beaches classed as excellent, behind most of the traditional beach holiday destinations in Europe. After Cyprus and Greece, Spain came in third place (92.7 per cent of beaches classed as excellent), Italy 4th (91.1 per cent) and Portugal 7th (90.3).

France, however, had 67 beaches where the water was considered too dirty for safe swimming and just 79 per cent of its resorts were regarded as excellent, leaving it behind Britain and 14th in Europe. The biggest concentration of France’s dirty beaches were in the northwest of the country, on the Channel and Atlantic coasts, although a handful were found along the Côte-D’Azur.

Climate change may be making northern Europe warmer but beaches there remain less inviting than in the Mediterranean or the Aegean. The worst coastal water quality standards in the EU were found in Poland and Belgium.

Samples of sea water were taken throughout the 2006 bathing season and analysed for the presence of two bacteria, Streptococcus and Enterococcus. Although mainly caused by sewage or decaying vegetation or animal matter, they are regarded by EU scientists as reliable indicators of the general level of pollution, and if the concentration is too high they could cause sickness or diarrhoea.

Britain showed a big rise in the number of resorts passing basic EU standards, up from 90.9 per cent in 2005 to 99.6 per cent. The Environment Agency blamed the drop in British beaches receiving Europe’s top grade on unseasonal rainfall. A spokeswoman said: “There is variation every year, and in May and August last year there was significantly higher than average rainfall which meant more pollution was washed off farmland into rivers.”

Aberafan in South Wales and Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast were the only two in Britain to fail the EU pollution survey.

Staithes has struggled for many years to clean up and continued to register high levels of pollution despite an overhaul of Yorkshire Water’s nearby sewage plant. A further study is being carried out by the Environment Agency to track down the source of the pollution.

The coast at Aberafan, east of Swansea, has undergone a clean-up in recent years but two bad results at each end of the summer meant that it was left on the EU blacklist.

The Ladies’ Pond at Hampstead Heath in North London was the only one of Britain’s 11 registered inland swimming sites to fail the test. But the City of London Corporation said that the pond remained open and failed only because trees dropped their leaves earlier than usual, causing a build-up of decaying material.

Blackpool’s main beach was not given an EU listing, but the resort was not included in the results because the building of a new sea wall meant that it was not suitable for bathing.

Poland had the fewest beaches passing even the basic test, at 85.7 per cent, and although 95 per cent of Belgium’s beaches met the basic EU standard, just 22.5 per cent were graded excellent, the worst record in Europe.

The European Commission also surveyed inland fresh-water bathing sites, where the best results were found in Denmark (90.2 per cent graded excellent), followed by Estonia (81.6 per cent), Germany (79.1 per cent) and Austria (77.2 per cent).

Although 90.9 per cent of British inland swimming locations passed the basic test, just 27.3 per cent were considered in the top category, one of the worst performances in Europe.