I’ll get my excuses in from the start …it’s been a busy week so I’ve not had much time to search for photos for this week’s Friday Photo. However, you can’t fault the view!
On what must’ve been the hottest day of the year in Hoylake, the beach was just about empty when I snapped the above at around 3pm this afternoon. I bet West Kirby was absolutely packed! There were more people on the sand on Wednesday when it was so misty (and cool) that you couldn’t see Hilbre Island from the bottom of King’s Gap. Maybe it was too hot? Actually there were a handful of people on the sand in front of the rocks by the lifeboat station …there is some clean, soft sand in front of the rocks.
Now we could debate why Hoylake beach is empty when up the road it’s jam packed, however I don’t know about you but I fancy a nice, cold beer 😉
Might be interesting to find out where all those people that are going to West Kirby come from, using a little survey. Do they come from Liverpool or are they travelling from other parts of Wirral.
In the 60’s & early 70’s It always seemed to me that more local Wirral people used Hoylake and Liverpool people went straight to West Kirby, end of the line, don’t know if that is still true today. However, if Hoylake really wants ‘visitors’ back on the beach, maybe it would be good to know who to target.
If Hoylake wanted to attract more visitors to the beach then perhaps having public toilets would help also a cafe close to the beach, we used to have all those things but they have now gone with the baths and toilets closing, West Kirby has those plus nice clean soft sand which we too used to have but has now gone and just left us with wet sand and midges.
Diane
I think Rob is correct about the folk from Liverpool traveling to the end of the line in the 70’s and 80’s. I know as a lad in the 80’s Hoylake was always deserted apart from a couple of days a year at the most. This actually annoyed us as all of these people were on our beach!
I think West Kirby seems a much more complete package, a nice sandy beach with a walk towards Red Rocks or Hilbre, a nice area that has an ice cream shop over looking the Marine Lake which is (by definition) always full. Also offering a walk around it. A nice enough park next to the beach, again with an ice cream shop. Also the large supermarket right next to it is convenient for families to use for meal-times.
I think Hoylake should develop a tourism industry based around the current lifeboat station, incorporating a tea/ice cream shop into the new building. The bowling greens offer a nice park and the boating lake offers an attraction. The slipway there has a nice sandy beach. Perhaps we could have tractor rides put on by the RNLI to Hilbre (at a cost to the user). Maybe put a indoor play center at the old school for when it rains. Create a Hoylake Museum displaying pictures of yesteryear, even a trail so people can go and have pictures taken in the same spot as the the old photos.
Of course all of this costs money and any investor needs to be sure of a return…
The Lifeboat Museum has permission for a Cafe and will hopefully soon be up and running. The Boating Lake is a great asset. The Gardens are in the process of having the Seaside Regeneration £30,000 spent on them . The new Lifeboat station is also an asset. The Community Centre is going from strength to strength and Hoylake is now looking good. Shops taken, Planters red, white and blue and Incredible Edible Planters full of food.Come to the HELP Shop for the latest Information about Hoylake including Jim O’Neill’s Book.
Well done Hoylake.
Jackie, definitely, please note I am 20 years out of date, so I am not up-to-date with current developments. Hoylake has so much to offer!
Hoylake Community Centre also has a coffee bar open from 8.30am-10pm each weekday and most Saturdays in the summer. There is coffee, tea, soft drinks available all in comfy surroundings. We just need to make sure that more people who are on the beach in Hoylake know it is there.
Rob Parker comments:
All Richard days makes good sense, however Hoylake people must decide want they want as at the moment not many from Hoylake itself use the beach . If It’s not attractive to locals it has no chance of attracting others.