Wirral's Planning Committee voted unanimously to register Hoylake beach as a village green. SSSI rules and Natural England consent still apply.
Hoylake beach is now a town or village green. Wirral Council’s Planning Committee voted unanimously on Thursday 1 October to put it on the register.
The decision gives Hoylake people a permanent legal right to use the beach for sports and pastimes, and protects it from development. It ends an application that residents lodged more than three years ago.
The vote came at the end of a meeting at Wallasey Town Hall. The chair, Councillor Stuart Kelly, moved the recommendation, it was seconded, and he declared the result “unanimous”. It can be seen at the end of item 5 on the council’s webcast of the meeting. Written minutes have not been published yet.
Which part of the beach
The green covers the stretch between King’s Gap slipway and Hoylake Lifeboat Station. It runs from the promenade wall out 100 metres towards the sea, as shown on the council’s application page.
It is not the whole beach. The sands more than 100 metres out, and the stretches beyond King’s Gap and the lifeboat station, are not part of it.
Why the inspector said yes
The council appointed an independent inspector, the barrister Annabel Graham Paul, to test the application. Her recommendation is set out in the officer report to the committee.
To register a green, the law requires four things to be proved. The land must have been used:
- for lawful sports and pastimes, for at least 20 years
- by a significant number of people from one locality
- “as of right”, meaning without force, secrecy or permission
- and still be in use on the date of the application
She found all four were met for the 20 years from May 2003 to May 2023. The locality is the Hoylake and Meols ward, and the old Hoylake ward before the 2003/04 ward boundary changes.
Witnesses and evidence forms listed what people actually do there:
- football, cricket, rounders, beach volleyball and tennis
- sand yachting, horse riding and kite flying
- dog walking, picnics, sandcastles, pilates and yoga
- the Boxing Day tug-of-war between the RNLI and Hoylake Sailing Club
- Lifeboat Day, bonfire and firework displays, and Victorian beach days
The inspector also found that use carried on through the change in vegetation management in 2019, and actually increased during the Covid pandemic.
The council argued against it
The council owns the beach, and as landowner it made its own submissions to the inspector. It is also the registration authority that decides the case, which is why an independent inspector was brought in.
The report records the landowner’s main arguments:
- The locality. Residents first relied on the Hoylake neighbourhood plan area. The inspector’s first report, in June 2025, found that was not a legal locality. Residents were allowed to switch to the Hoylake and Meols ward, which she accepted.
- “Statutory incompatibility”. The council said a green would clash with the beach’s wildlife protections. It pointed to the possible future need to restrict access and to Natural England’s power to make byelaws.
- Beach management. It cited past work such as removing spartina grass, spraying herbicide and raking, and said a green could conflict with rewilding.
In her second report, in April 2026, the inspector rejected the incompatibility argument. The council could find no evidence of what statutory powers it holds the land under. Without that, the doctrine did not apply.
At the final hearing on 7 August 2026, four residents gave evidence. The landowner did not take part, beyond sending someone to take notes, and did not challenge the evidence.
The officer report told councillors that refusing would be “very challenging” to justify and could be open to judicial review.
What changes, and what does not
The officer report and the committee’s questions make three points clear.
The wildlife protections stay. The beach is still part of the North Wirral Foreshore Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Ramsar wetland and several European conservation sites. Asked directly at the meeting, the council’s lawyer said registration makes “no change” to those protections. Natural England’s consent is still needed for works.
Development is ruled out. The report says the land “must be kept free from development or other encroachments”. Local people have “a guaranteed legal right” to sports and pastimes on it, permanently. The council’s application page says any works on the land would have to be for the enhancement of the green.
The lifeboat needs permission. It is an offence to drive vehicles over a village green without permission. The report says the RNLI will need specific permission to drive its vehicles over the site. Asked who grants it, the council’s lawyer said it would be the council as a whole, not the Planning Committee.
The report says the council’s costs of looking after the beach will not be substantially affected.
What the registration does not settle is the long argument over the beach’s vegetation. The council’s Hoylake beach management plan, agreed with Natural England, runs from 1 March 2026 to 31 March 2031. Nothing in the committee report says that plan stops. Any future works on the green will still need Natural England’s consent.
How it got here
The application went in on 18 May 2023, from residents working with the group Hoylake Help. It came with 84 user evidence forms from people who had lived in the area for the full 20 years.
The council’s public consultation ran from 17 December 2023 to 28 January 2024. It drew 1,343 responses: 580 online and 763 on paper. Of those, 914 came from Hoylake and Meols residents, and 88.1% of them supported the application.
All figures are from the committee report and its appendices on the meeting page.
What it means for you
- You can keep using the beach as you always have. Walking, dogs, games, kite flying and the annual events are exactly what the green protects.
- Nothing can be built on this stretch. That is now permanent, not a council policy that could change.
- Wildlife rules still apply. SSSI protections are unchanged, so work on the beach, including any vegetation clearance, still needs Natural England’s consent.
- Expect the minutes soon. The vote will be formally recorded in the published minutes. The Hoylake Carrs wetland scheme is a separate project, inland.
For other council decisions, see our Wirral planning news page.
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