Wirral 10K: 11 October, 9.30am, 750 Places Only

The Wirral 10K is on Sunday 11 October 2026, starting at 9.30am on Coastal Drive in New Brighton. It is organised by BTR Liverpool, it is capped at 750 runners, and entries are still open as of 4 September.

If you live in New Brighton or Wallasey and are not running it, the detail that matters to you is further down: the south end of New Brighton closes to traffic that morning.

The facts

Taken from the organiser’s own event page (BTR Liverpool):

One small inconsistency on the organiser’s page, worth knowing if you are putting a postcode into a satnav. The summary box gives the start location as Ian Fraser Walk, while the event description says the race “will start and finish on Coastal Drive”. They are the same corner of New Brighton, at the top of the promenade, but the two names are used interchangeably and only one of them will match what you type.

The route

Flat, and genuinely so. The course runs from Coastal Drive out along the waterfront as far as Seacombe Ferry Terminal, where runners “perform a U-turn and head back toward New Brighton”. The halfway point is just before the ferry terminal.

It is an out-and-back on the promenade with the Mersey on one side the whole way, which is why it gets used for personal bests. BTR describes the outward leg as giving “the best view of the Liverpool city skyline there is”.

Finishers get chip timing, a finisher’s goody bag, a finisher T-shirt and a medal.

Road closures and getting there

This is the part to read even if you are not running.

BTR states that on race day “the south end of New Brighton is closed to traffic”, and that all traffic must reach the event area via Harrison Drive. Coming from the M53:

• Leave at Junction 1 and follow the A554 towards New Brighton
• At the roundabout where the A554 meets Harrison Drive, take the first exit towards the river front
• At the next roundabout turn right onto Coastal Drive, where race day parking is available
• The start and finish area is just past the parking

The blunt version: you cannot approach from Wallasey. BTR’s own FAQ says access is from the north end via the A554 and Harrison Drive “as roads approaching the south end of New Brighton (from Wallasey) are closed on race day”. If your normal route into New Brighton comes up from the south, expect to be turned around.

The organiser publishes an interactive road closure map on the event page. The precise streets and closure times are not listed as text, and the council had not published a temporary traffic order for the event as of 4 September, so check the map in the days before rather than relying on last year’s layout.

By train, New Brighton station is the closest, at the end of the Merseyrail Wirral line, and avoids the closures entirely. Our train times to Liverpool page covers the service. If you are parking in the town for the morning rather than on Coastal Drive, tariffs are on our parking in Wirral page, and anything else disrupting the roads that week will be on Wirral roadworks and travel.

Before you enter

Two conditions catch people out.

There are no refunds. BTR states it “operates a no refund, deferral or entry transfer policy”. If you enter and cannot run, that is the end of it. There is no deferring to next year and no passing your place to a friend.

The cap is 750, which is small for a city-region road race, so it is a race that can close before the date rather than taking entries to the line.

The entry fee is not published on BTR’s own event page. It only appears at the Active checkout, which loads as a JavaScript application, so we are not going to quote a figure we cannot verify against the organiser. Check the price on the entry page itself before committing. Race number information “will follow closer to the event”, which in practice means the week before.

You do not have to run for a charity, though several partner with the race, including Clatterbridge Cancer Charity, Mersey Care and Open Door Charity.

If you were looking for the Wirral Half Marathon

There is no Wirral Half Marathon in 2026. The phrase still returns results, and one running directory even keeps it in a page address alongside the 10K, but that page lists only the 10K when you open it. BTR is running the 10K distance only this year on the New Brighton course.

Other BTR races on or near the peninsula this season are the Port Sunlight 10K & 5K and, off Wirral, the Liverpool Santa Dash. A separate organiser runs the Winter Wirral Ultra, a 36-mile route along the Wirral Circular Trail and the Wirral Way starting from Hooton, in November. That is a different event and a different entry.

Watching it

The out-and-back format makes this an easy one to spectate. Anywhere on the promenade between New Brighton and Seacombe puts you on the course twice, once in each direction, and the leaders will pass the halfway point around 25 to 30 minutes after the gun. The finish on Coastal Drive gets busy from about 10.10am.

Results are “normally available shortly after” the race on BTR’s site.

All details above were taken from the organiser’s own event page on 4 September 2026. Road closure detail can change late, so check the organiser’s map in race week.