The best and worst beaches in County Durham and Teesside for cleanliness have been ranked. 

Online site Holiday Park Guru has given cleanliness scores for beaches across the region, ranking them excellent, good, sufficient, and poor when it comes to cleanest beaches for swimming. 

This comes alongside the 'brown flag awards', a twist on the blue flags used to recognise clean and sustainable waters and were gifted to the beaches ranked the lowest by the Environment Agency.

These rankings come from the Environment Agency but have been split into regional categories by Robbie Lane from Holiday Park Guru.

Mr Lane, a keen sea-swimmer himself, said: "We’re hoping to make a real splash in the papers with the launch of England’s first-ever 'Brown Flag Awards'.

"Commiserations to our 13 winners this year – you are top of the plops.

"We just hope they’ll take up our offer of a free brown flag, although I’m afraid we can’t quite afford to provide a flagpole as well.”

Despite the 'brown flag awards' - there have been rankings of good quality swimming spots across County Durham. 

Read more:

Get the latest news, sports, and entertainment delivered straight to your device by subscribing to The Northern Echo here. 

In the rankings, no beach is given a poor rating - while four beaches have been given good and Seaton Carew North Gare is ranked the best.

The best and worst beaches in County Durham and Teesside for cleanliness:

3 Star Beaches (Excellent):

  • Seaton Carew North Gare

2 Star Beaches (Good):

  • Crimdon (near Parkdean Resorts Crimdon Dene Holiday Park)
  • Seaham Beach
  • Seaton Carew Centre
  • Seaton Carew North

1 Star Beaches (Sufficient)

  • Seaham Hall Beach