Very windy as always, but restorative. I, as usual get to places either before anyone goes or after they have been changed. The Tobacco cliffs are no longer and it is has been split in half. Just small bits of cliff are left and some of the layers can still be seen.
Thousands of tonnes of waste wet tobacco leaf were dumped here by the British Nicotine Company between the 1950’s and the 1970’s. The waste has been taken over with nettles and brambles that find the old tobacco tasty, so all the native plants and reptiles can’t thrive. The most important being the Natterjack toad.
Dynamic Dunescapes says;
‘Restoration of the cliffs, involves excavating two large V-shaped wedges from the dunes with diggers. This will allow sand blown from the beach to be pushed through the gaps and build up on top of the tobacco waste, covering the nettles and creating new, undulating dunes’ accessed 7th November 2026.
It is very moody there and when you stand where the cliffs used to be the landscape is like the moon.
Here are two good videos to watch. One from Field Notes + Fragments and one from G2E Media. They show the cliffs before restotration.
There is so much to read about it all so I will put links for you to see instead.
Formby beach: Plans to transform sand dunes to help wildlife - BBC News
Formby | Liverpool | National Trust
Tobacco cliffs visible after storms clear coastline - Liverpool Echo
Conservation work at Formby │ Liverpool | National Trust
CITiZAN - Blogs - From Prehistoric Footprints to the First Lifeboat Station
