Its time that we stick up for ourselves and tackle the myths and lies being spread about Hoylake Beach Community.
Myth One: Hoylake Beach Community are damaging vegetation
As a group we have always respected the rules and laws placed
on Hoylake beach and have not and do not advocate anyone damaging the vegetation.
HBC will unfortunately always be to blame, even though there is a multitude of reasons why vegetation gets damaged, the easy option and the one that grabs attention is to blame members of Hoylake Beach Community.
We reserve our right to remain innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately certain people on the (ironically named) 'The Evidence’ page repeatedly make these comments, without evidence!
We had some of the team visit the beach after the latest claims to
see what was going on. They did not find any iris plants that had been dug up. They did find plants that had been cut near to the promenade which were smaller than the tall spindly ones that looked to have blown over. Whoever cut the plants know that this is propagation and helps them grow stronger.
One could suggest that the green beach group are damaging the plants themselves in order for them to grow more abundantly with the added bonus of blaming our group to make us look bad… but then, we have no evidence of this!!
Myth Two: HBC want poisonous spray on the beach.
HBC do not want, advocate or support the use of dangerous or poisonous spraying on Hoylake beach. If you have read our previous blogs and articles, since we launched the group in October 2021, we have never said this and have only ever supported raking. In fact, at the bottom of every blog we state
“We do not support chemicals, only raking.”
Again, certain people on the (ironically named) 'The Evidence' page repeatedly make this comment - without evidence!
What did happen? The council accidentally over-sprayed the whole beach in 2019, when they were only meant to be spot spraying Spartina. This caused an uproar so beach management was ceased. The council still do spot spraying today, all over the Wirral, on pavements and various different places.
Since our launch we have always requested a compromise, for the traditional sandy stretch running along North Parade from the new RNLI station to Kings gap to be restored as a beach and the rest left for re-wilding. No one from the council have ever responded to our compromise request.
Myth Three: We censor our group
We do not censor anything in our Facebook page; however we make no secret of the fact that we only allow genuine supporters of a sandy beach to join. The group is a friendly, safe space for people to discuss how they feel about the beach.
Certain people (again) like to repeat over and over and over again on social media that they have been blocked, making out they are a victim of some awful injustice. In truth, you would not bring anything constructive to the group. From what we have seen of your social media activity you act in a way that can only be described as trolling, lauding your opinion over others, making sweeping untrue statements and belittling people who do not agree and bringing them to tears.
We know that people from the pro grass beach side have set up additional profiles and gained access to our Facebook page. They are silently watching and feeding back to their little group what they see. This is absolutely fine with us, because we are confident in the fact that there isn’t anything nasty being said, no one is being attacked or bad mouthed.
One, who we will leave nameless, has stated online that they think it is ok to publicly harass people, they've been the catalyst for witch hunt style social media batterings and typed 'it is well deserved’. HBC have more class than to lower our campaign to your level, and this says more about you than it does HBC.
And to be quite frank, we have more important things to discuss than you and your cohort.
We do not want this type of behaviour in the group. So, we say to you, “ask yourself, are you a genuine support of a sandy beach?’ If the answer is no, then you would have read our group rules and know you are not welcome”.
Myth Four: HBC are the minority
The majority of Hoylake and Meols support a full sandy beach on North Parade or a beach compromise (sand and grass).
We do not encourage and actually actively deter people from engaging with the pro grass people on social media, so it may appear they have more support. Yet again, it is that small group with the loudest mouths that keep protesting too much!
The (ironically named) 'The Evidence' page repeatedly make this comment - without evidence!
Take a look at the Wirral Globes recent post asking people what they would like to see returned to the Wirral; around 2,000 out of the 2,200 people who commented stated they would like the beach at Hoylake to be restored.
Myth Five: HBC are Online Bullies
As a friendly group we do not like to take part in online battles and we encourage our members not to as we care about their mental health and well being.
We haven’t reported on online bullying before because we try to stay focused working towards a compromise.
But, unfortunately, after Mondays exchanges on the (ironically named) 'The Evidence’ page we have to call it out. Finally there is evidence on 'The Evidence' page!!!!
Bullying is harmful, not conducive to anyones case and often comes from those who know they are in the wrong so they try to bulldoze their opinions on everyone else. Sad really!
Bullying online can have harmful effects on peoples mental health, we don’t know how the recipient of nasty comments are feeling in their lives. A cyber bully may skip about the internet leaving nasty comments and repetition is a hallmark of cyberbullying.
There are a couple people on that page who see attacking people with differing opinions on the beach as a blood sport and appear to get some perverse sense of enjoyment from it.
What makes it worse, is the admins of the page allow this to continuously happen and even respond with laughing face emojis.
Those who created the ‘ironically named The Evidence’ page, have become local online ‘influencers’. And as an influencer they have a responsibility to their followers to moderate when things get out of hand, whether these followers are in agreement with the page or not.
We have been made aware that the incident that took place on Monday has now been deleted. But it took almost a full day after the victim requested to the admin team for help for it to be eventually removed.
Those who set up these pages and acquire high numbers of followers have to take responsibility and manage their followers.
It is important to remember that everyone has the right to their own opinion and its okay if others don’t agree with it.
We won’t name the individuals we are referring to (today), they know who they are. We would ask them to ask themselves, would they say to someones face, in front of others, what they type from behind a screen?
Be kind!
All we want is a decent size section of sandy beach*, less than 1% of the Wirral coastline, for locals and visitors to use for relaxation and recreation purposes... not a lot is it!?!
: Hoylake Beach Community, is a voluntary group who have been asking WBC for a compromise that will suit all. Our hope is for a section* of the beach to be restored to sand so that residents from across Wirral and beyond can utilise it for recreation and health and well-being purposes.We are asking for a common sense approach for ALL; wildlife, nature & people. The half mile stretch* of amenity beach we would like equates to less than 1% compared to the Wirral shoreline conservation area. There really has to be a balance of human and environmental needs.Hoylake Beach Community are not affiliated with any other group. HBC only use two forms of online communication. This website and a Facebook group which anyone is welcome to request to join. Search Hoylake Beach Community. HBC do not use any other social media.
*We are not asking for the whole beach, our compromise is just for the section that runs alongside North Parade from Kings Gap to the RNLI station, with the rest being left to the grasses. We do not support chemicals, only raking.
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Remember, genuine supporters of a compromise for Hoylake Beach to be restored to sand should join our Facebook group. Search: Hoylake Beach Community.
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