Fylde Bird Club has long campaigned to reduce man made disturbance on our coast and, with
the help of others, has had some success. Motor vehicles are now banned from Preesall Sands,
microlight operators have been reminded to obey flying guidelines and jet skis on the River Wyre
are restricted to certain parts of the river.
However the situation is not satisfactory and disturbance is still unacceptably high. Therefore we
intend to re-invigorate our campaign and join with others to make things better. The Morecambe
Bay Partnership is funding a study to record disturbance to high tide roosts in the northern part
of Morecambe Bay and the hope is that high tide refuges can be established there. The RSPB
and Natural England are involved.
We need to press hard for high tide refuges on the Wyre Borough and Fylde Borough coasts.
Beach zoning has long been proposed by the Club at Rossall Point but no effective action has yet
been taken by Wyre Council. The idea is allocate a small part of the beach as a refuge at high
tide and ask people to respect it. Yes I know that’s hard but it CAN be done. Other seriously
disturbed sites include the beaches at Lytham, Fairhaven and St Annes. Small refuges at these
locations could be established and make a huge difference.
These locations are within the Morecambe Bay and Ribble protected areas. The areas are
designated as SPAs (Special Protection Areas under EU law), SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific
Interest) and Ramsar Sites (wetland of international importance). The EU Birds Directive states
that “Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard
the habitats of migratory birds”.
In this regard the authorities are obliged to protect these areas from damaging disturbance and
our aim will be to press them to do so. In order to support the campaign to provision high tide
refuges, we need as many records of disturbance as we can log. We already have a significant
number of records on file but really do need a lot more, particularly of the continuous effect of
dogs on roosts, that generally goes unreported.
Please help by submitting any disturbance records either by completing the form below or by e-
mail.
We appreciate that we may be tilting at windmills and do not expect quick results, but we feel
that we must not turn a blind eye to the matter and that in time the message will get through
and action will result.