Officers back all five applications at Thursday's Wirral Planning Committee: a Wallasey hostel, five Heswall flats and a compound behind the Lighthouse Inn.

Two petitions and 41 individual objections have not changed a single officer recommendation. All five applications going to Wirral’s Planning Committee on Thursday are recommended for approval.

The committee meets at 6pm on Thursday 10 September at Wallasey Town Hall. The agenda and full officer reports are published, and the meeting is webcast.

Here is what is on the list.

Application Where What is proposed Opposition
APP/26/00691 Lighthouse Inn, 228 Wallasey Village 15-month construction compound for a United Utilities storm water tank 52-name petition, 3 representations
APP/26/00418 Northcroft, 282-284 Telegraph Road, Heswall Demolish the house, build 5 flats and 5 garages 22 objections, 28-name petition
APP/26/00814 Grove House Hotel, 45 Grove Road, Wallasey Village Make the hostel use permanent 18 objections
ADV/26/00958 Duke Street and Beckwith Street, Birkenhead Digital advertising screen Ward councillor objection
APPH/26/01027 5 Woodcote Bank, Higher Bebington Rear and side extension 1 objection
Bar chart of petition signatures and individual objections for each of the five applications at Wirral Planning Committee on 10 September 2026

A compound behind the Lighthouse Inn, for 15 months

The largest volume of opposition is at Wallasey Village. United Utilities wants a temporary construction compound on 0.22 hectares of land behind the Lighthouse Inn car park, to build an underground storm water detention tank. The submitted drawings refer to it as the Sandy Lane CSO scheme.

Access would be through the pub car park off Wallasey Village. The land is enclosed by houses on three sides.

The officer report splits the work into three phases: two weeks to establish the compound, 57 weeks of use, then two weeks to take it down. A condition would require everything to be gone within 15 months of the start.

The petition and the representations objected on access, noise, light and the closeness of the cabins to homes. Councillor Ian Lewis raised the site layout, road safety at the Green Lane access, noise from welfare units and the fact the land is landlocked by housing.

Three points in the report matter to neighbours:

  • Working hours are advice, not a condition. Officers concluded hours and noise are for the Environmental Health regime, not planning, so an informative advises Monday to Friday 7am to 7pm and Saturday 8am to 5pm, with no Sunday or bank holiday working.
  • The topsoil stockpile would sit about 6.5 metres from the rear outrigger of 117 St George’s Road. Dust measures would be secured by condition.
  • Two parking spaces by the compound entrance would be displaced during the 57-week middle phase. The highway authority accepted the car park management plan.

The report also records a net loss of biodiversity on the site. The required 10% gain would be delivered “primarily off-site” through a Biodiversity Gain Plan.

Five flats on a Heswall corner

At the junction of Telegraph Road and Poll Hill Road, an extended two-storey house and its outbuilding would be demolished. In their place would go a building of up to three storeys containing five self-contained flats, four with three bedrooms and one with two, plus a single-storey block of five garages.

An earlier scheme for six flats, APP/25/00477, was withdrawn. During this application the design was changed from a full three storeys to a stepped form dropping to single storey.

The 28-name petition objected on footprint, mass and scale in a prominent location, and on parking pressure at Poll Hill Road. The 22 individual objections added overlooking, loss of light, refuse vehicles, flood risk, the loss of a family home and the argument that Poll Hill Road is one of the oldest parts of Heswall. Councillor Kathy Hodson asked the council to review the amended sketches.

Officers recommend approval, but only with a section 106 agreement. The report sets the developer contributions at:

  • £14,876 towards open space
  • £1,596 towards outdoor sports
  • £800 monitoring fee

Both of the first two would be spent at Puddy Dale Recreation Ground. If no acceptable agreement is signed within six months, officers would refuse the application instead.

Making the Grove Road hostel permanent

Grove House Hotel has operated as a hostel for the past three years under a temporary permission, APP/22/01848, which has now run out. The application asks to make that use permanent, with no building work and no change to the way it runs.

The officer report sets out the numbers: 18 en-suite bedrooms across three floors, two people to a room, and a maximum of 36 residents, which a condition would cap. Stays are typically two to four weeks, occasionally six to eight. There is a housing officer on site at all times and a team of eight staff working in rotation.

The applicant states that the people accommodated are “predominantly families and individuals requiring temporary accommodation whilst permanent housing is secured”.

Of 21 representations, 18 objected. Concerns included noise, security, the effect on the character of a residential street, house prices, and what the building might be used for in future. Objectors asked for a rolling three-year permission so the use could be reviewed. The planning history also records a separate 2022 application, APP/22/01643, for a temporary change of use to house asylum seekers, which was never determined.

Officers found the use “suitably akin” to the hotel it replaced, given the comings and goings and staffing are similar. On antisocial behaviour they were direct: no supporting evidence was submitted, and in any case the issue sits outside planning control and would be handled under other legislation. Environmental Health did not object.

A screen that was refused, then dismissed on appeal

The digital advertising screen at Duke Street and Beckwith Street, next to Birkenhead Park station, is back for the third time.

Consent for a digital billboard here was granted in 2022. A later application for a brighter screen, ADV/25/00948, was refused in August 2025 on visual amenity and highway safety grounds, and the appeal was dismissed in December 2025. The inspector disagreed with the council on residents’ amenity but agreed that the illumination would distract drivers at a complex junction.

This application, ADV/26/00958, cuts the daytime luminance from 3,000 to 2,400 candelas per square metre, and reduces the screen by 350mm in length and 500mm in height. Night-time luminance stays at 300 cd/m2. The officer report records that the highway authority and the traffic and transportation team now have no objection.

Sixty-eight notification letters were sent and no representations came back. Councillor Grey objected and took the application out of officers’ hands, citing road safety and the effect on residents’ outlook. Consent would expire after five years.

The fifth item, at 5 Woodcote Bank in Higher Bebington, is a householder extension called in by Councillor Tony Murphy over its effect on the neighbours at number 7. It drew one objection and is also recommended for approval.

What it means for you

A recommendation is not a decision. The committee can approve, refuse or defer any of these, and it does sometimes go against its officers. Nothing on this list is settled until Thursday evening.

If one of these sites is near you, the officer reports linked above carry the plans, conditions and the full summary of what neighbours said, which is more detail than any decision notice will give you afterwards. The meeting is webcast from the agenda page, so you can watch without travelling to Wallasey.

For applications that never reach committee, and for how the borough’s Local Plan shapes these decisions, see our Wirral planning news page.

Sources