Allonby has missed out on regaining a Blue Flag, despite more than £1m worth of investment to improve water quality at the village’s beaches.

The Blue Flag awards, which recognise good water quality, were announced this week, with no Cumbrian beaches securing one.

Allonby won the coveted award in 2005 but by 2012 had failed to reach minimum European Bathing Water Directive standards.

United Utilities has since invested more than £1m in the area, enlarging drainage pipes and creating a huge tank which will stop or minimise effluent overflow in times of heavy rain and flooding.

Residents organise regular beach clean-ups and, parish council chairman Roger Hart believes the area will regain a Blue Flag or equivalent award in the future. But he explained that the European standards measured water quality over three years, so the recordings for the latest awards started before the improvement work began.

Councillor Hart added that the work had cleaned the water considerably but had not ended the village’s problems. He said: “We still get run-off from the farms running into the becks and rivers and into the Solway.

“The way the standards work, we may have to wait until after Brexit and devise some other way of rating our beaches and water.”