COUNCILLOR Gardner's support for the continued spraying and raking of Hoylake’s beaches is, at best, misguided.

I attended the meeting on July 15 this year at which council members unanimously declared a climate emergency.

Can Cllr Gardner explain how the continued attempts to control the growth of grass on our beaches is compatible with this declaration and why the natural evolution from beach to a salt marsh/dune habitat is somehow unclean or "unkempt?"

The international panel of climate change predict that sea levels will rise by 0.61mts-1.10mts by 2100.

In The Beaches at West Kirby and Hoylake, published in 2000, Wirral Borough Council acknowledges that "The rapid accretion of sand is of benefit to the natural and man-made coastal defences" and proposed a field trial "to encourage the development of a small band of embryo dune habitat ... between Beach Road and The Kings Gap."

Unfortunately, these trials were never implemented.

If Cllr Gardner takes the declaration of a climate emergency seriously he, along with Wirral Council, must start communicating to their constituents the importance of letting the natural process of salt marsh/dune formation to continue and give us the future sea defences we need.

Peter Healey, Hoylake