EXPERT ENDORSEMENTS

“The Trustees of the Dee Estuary Conservation Group – a network of 25 local and national bodies with interests in the wildlife of the Dee Estuary – fully support this much-needed advocacy and awareness-raising website. It is developing into a strong evidence base for Hoylake beach, guided by experts, and with links to a broad range of evidence and data, in one place. We share your enthusiasm for more economically and environmentally sustainable beach management in future, which should have the strongest possible backing of evidence and best practice.”

“I wholeheartedly endorse Natural England’s objective to protect emerging saltmarsh and dune succession along the North Wirral Foreshore at Hoylake. The similarity between the conditions at Hoylake with those at Birkdale are becoming particularly notable. The beach supports an internationally rare habitat in the form of early successional dune and salt marsh, recognised as such under Annex I Habitats Directive (1992), and is the home to a number of nationally notable species. This includes the nationally rare Whorl-grass (Catabrosa aquatica var. uniflora), found at only one other site in England.”

“Wirral Wildlife supports efforts to engage people in an evidence-based debate over future management of North Wirral Foreshore, including Hoylake Beach. We support the development of this website, which presents much useful information, and will continue to be a ‘critical friend’ in presenting factual information on nature conservation and the environment of North Wirral Foreshore.”

“Having read your documents, I can't find anything with which I would disagree. Environmental conditions at Hoylake evidently resemble those at Birkdale in terms of sand-supply, rising beach levels, relative exposure, etc. but there may be differences that only detailed physiographic and ecological study would discover. The 2000 report by Jemmett & Smith covers most of this very thoroughly, making a large number of sound recommendations, including the setting up of an Advisory Group, enacting field trials and a programme of monitoring.

“I am pleased that an Advisory Group has recently been established, including experts in the field, several of whom I know personally. Joshua Styles, also respected in his field, has begun botanical studies. It could be justified to commission an updated report, to establish what has changed since 2000 and make a simpler set of recommendations that the Council would find it easier to implement. In the meantime, I am happy to support your efforts to establish a sustainable environmental management policy on the North Wirral shore, bearing in mind the uncertainties referred to."

“Natural coastal habitats and their dependent species have been under threat in Britain for nearly a century. This includes sand dunes especially. Remnant sand dunes on the Wirral occur in isolated patches, are being managed against the odds, need reinforcement and reconnection. Local extinctions have already occurred but they can be reversed. Regeneration of the original sand dunes and other coastal habitats on the North Wirral Foreshore (through abstention from spraying and raking at the behest of Natural England) provides the opportunity to make what were previously rare and vicariously existing species to be more common and secure. This richer, larger and better connected coastal ecosystem will provide myriad services to the community along the north Wirral coast.

“This ecological regeneration should be seized as an opportunity to reconnect to a healthy, diverse, resilient and scenic environment for all.”