As our beaches, coastal towns and villages continue to see a high number of visitors despite our pleas for people not to drive to Sefton’s beaches, we’ve  seen a few messages asking why we don’t close the beaches.

We manage 22 miles of coast. Aside from a couple of hundred yards at Altcar Rifle range, it’s completely open access with  hundreds of individual access points, little footpaths and other ways to walk on.

There is no way we can ever ‘close’ the beaches.

What we are doing is stopping access to the car parks, and are working with our partners at Merseyside Police to restrict access to roads.

Ultimately we need people to please listen to our advice and warnings to stay away from our beaches during this time.