Councillor Lesley Rennie introduced the report of the Director of Neighbourhood Services that set out the findings and recommendations arising from the overview & scrutiny review, chaired by Councillor Rennie, into the management of campervans in Wallasey and New Brighton. The review was commissioned as part of the Business Overview & Scrutiny Committee’s work programme in 2018/19 in response to a number of resident concerns around overnight parking of campervans in Wallasey and New Brighton.

Councillor Rennie informed that how, in 2018, the Business Overview & Scrutiny Committee requested that the ‘Effective Management of Campervans at Coastal Locations in Wirral’ be added to the Committee work programme. She further informed that since 2014, a range of complaints had been received by residents of New Brighton and Wallasey Wards in regard to overnight parking of campervans and similar vehicles in the area, primarily along the Kings Parade and Coastal Drive areas of New Brighton. In November 2018, a Task & Finish Panel was established to undertake a detailed review of these issues.

The Tourism, Culture and Leisure Committee were apprised that the initial review scope also set out to assess the commercial opportunities available and potential for a dedicated campervan site to be established on Wirral, the objectives of the Panel were adjusted over the course of the review as it had become clear that that was a much bigger piece of work and should involve a wider group of stakeholders; as a result, the Panel looked only to review immediate resident concerns and to evaluate the effectiveness of the initial Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) on Kings Parade and subsequent ETRO on Pilot’s Way, New Brighton that had been put into place.

Initial evaluation of the effectiveness of the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order along Kings Parade and Coastal Drive showed that the prohibition of overnight parking in this area was proven to be a successful resolution to previously reported concerns. The Panel therefore recommended that the order be made permanent following cessation of the initial 18 month temporary order in May 2020. This order was subsequently made permanent following a decision of the Cabinet Member for Community Services effective from 11 June 2020.

The report also informed that an informal meeting was held with local New Brighton and Wallasey Ward Members on 14 July 2020, chaired by the Cabinet Member for Community Services. The outcome of this meeting was that no consensus could be reached on provision of a suitable short-medium term site for campervans/motorhomes in these wards due to the recent increase in demand in coastal locations as a result of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. The meeting agreed that a Borough-wide ‘Task and Finish’ study into commercial opportunities for sites with facilities, reporting into the new committee structure, would be the best way forward.  This work had been picked up by the Council’s Commercial Team.

The Tourism, Culture and Leisure Committee noted that following introduction of the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) a relocation of problem parking to Sandcliffe Road, Wallasey and Sea Road, Wallasey had occurred. Members were requested to consider inclusion of an additional resolution to those contained in the report, to extend of the area covered by the existing TRO to include the two above named roads.

RESOLVED - That

1)  the recommendations contained within the Campervans Scrutiny Review report of the Business Overview & Scrutiny Committee be noted;

2)  establishment of a cross-Committee working group, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, be agreed in order to explore alternative off-highway provision with dedicated facilities for motor caravans on Wirral; and

3)  the existing (permanent) Traffic Regulation Order be extended to include Sea Road, Wallasey and Sandcliffe Road, Wallasey.