Sefton Council's Cabinet, 23 July 2026
This is the meeting that declared the field surplus and licensed The Sovini Group to begin feasibility work. The whole meeting, with every report and the draft minutes, is on the Council's own website: Cabinet, 23 July 2026. Our site is the Ainsdale Hope item, number 35.
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The key document. Table 1 on page 4 gives the estimated capacity of each site, and puts this one at 120 homes. Paragraphs 1.19 to 1.21 cover the Ainsdale Hope site, including the statement that feasibility work "will include a number of ecology surveys due to the close proximity to the sand dunes beyond the site boundary".
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Minute 35 records the decisions: the site declared surplus to operational requirements, and a licence authorised for Sovini to progress feasibility work. Also available as a single page on the Council's site.
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The land edged red, which is what "declared surplus" applies to.
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If you would rather watch the discussion than read the minutes.
The Local Plan
The rules any application will be judged against. "A Local Plan for Sefton", adopted April 2017 (PDF, on the Council's website). This site is allocation MN2.8, 9.2 hectares, indicative capacity 120 homes.
Two passages matter. Policy MN2, paragraph 5:
"Site MN2.8 Former Ainsdale Hope School, Ainsdale will include an Ecological Improvement Area to be developed as a nature reserve alongside the housing allocation."
And Appendix 1, which sets three requirements for this site and no other. Development of this site must:
- "ensure that sufficient information is provided with the planning application to enable the Council to make a Habitats Regulations Assessment. This must include information about the impact of recreational pressure on the integrity of internationally important nature sites";
- "ensure that the loss of the former playing pitch(es) is addressed consistent with Local Plan policy NH5... via a commuted sum payment (on a per dwelling basis) towards the provision of a new 3G pitch(es) at Meols Park or adjacent land"; and
- "provide new habitat and ecological improvements on the adjacent 'Ecological Improvement Area', the extent of which will be determined following the completion of future evidence."
Note what the third requirement does. It ties the size of the nature reserve to the ecological evidence. As the reports below show, that evidence is not finished, and what exists is from 2023.
The ecology reports
Six reports, all commissioned and paid for by Sefton Council, all carried out in 2023 apart from one written up in 2025 from 2023 fieldwork. The Council refused to release any of them in June 2026 on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, and released them on 29 July 2026 after a formal internal review.
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The Council's answers to each of the seven parts of the request. Worth reading alongside the reports, because on two points the reports contradict it.
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Contains the single most significant record on the site. Table 4.1, nocturnal survey 3, 18 May 2023: "x1 adult female great crested newt was encountered within tussocky, anthill grassland in the east of the Site bordering the off-site woodland." Paragraph 5.3 says further survey effort for great crested newts "is highly recommended" and that a mitigation licence may be required.
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The only report the Council redacted. Figure 1, the vegetation survey map, has been removed entirely, along with paragraphs 5.2 to 5.6 (Impacts and Recommendations) and the Appendix 1 species lists. What remains still records the maiden pink colony, "thought to be the only native colonies of maiden pink in the South Lancashire vice-county", and confirms the Sefton Coast SAC, SSSI, Ramsar site and Ainsdale and Birkdale Sandhills LNR are all "immediately adjacent to the site".
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Records "six Species of Principal Importance, fourteen Birds of Conservation Concern (six red listed and eight amber listed) and three Local Biodiversity Action Plan species", and finds the grassland and scrub around the outer boundary to be "the most valuable habitat overall". Paragraph 5.15 sets out the professional standard on how long survey data stays valid.
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Priority and nationally scarce species associated with the open sandy habitat. Its recommendation 4.1: "The priority should always be to retain key areas of habitat in situ."
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Note Appendix 3, which the report's own contents page says holds the 2022 Preliminary Ecological Appraisal. The divider page is there; the appraisal behind it is not. We have asked for it.
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Dated 2025 but based on fieldwork from 24 May, 13 July and 9 October 2023. Paragraph 4.45 confirms a common pipistrelle roost in the house on the site and states that a roost characterisation survey "is yet to be undertaken".
A note on why the dates matter. The consultants set out their own professional standard in the bird report at 5.15: "Beyond three years, the report is unlikely to still be valid and most, if not all, of the surveys are likely to need to be updated." All of this fieldwork is from 2023. Three further pieces of work the consultants recommended, a repeat great crested newt survey, a bat roost characterisation survey and a herpetofauna mitigation plan, have not been produced.
These reports were prepared by independent consultants for Sefton Council and are published here as they were released to residents, so that the evidence base can be examined. If you hold rights in any of this material and would like something removed, contact us and we will act on it.
A note on redactions. Two documents here are letters the Council addressed to a private individual. We have removed the addressee's name and home address from those two letters before publishing them. Nothing else has been altered, and no part of the Council's reasoning, evidence or answers has been touched. The only other redactions in this collection are the Council's own, in the NVC survey, and those we are still challenging.
How the information was obtained
This is the full trail of the information request, so you can judge the Council's openness for yourself.
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11 April 2026
A resident submits a seven-part request to Sefton Council for all ecological surveys and reports on the site, details of who commissioned and funded them, any Habitats Regulations Assessment, pre-application advice, correspondence with statutory and wildlife bodies, and the Strategic Asset Review papers.
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15 April 2026
The Council acknowledges the request, reference 19579973, received 13 April.
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12 May 2026
The twenty working day deadline passes with no response.
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30 May 2026
The resident writes to chase, noting the Council is more than two weeks past its statutory deadline.
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5 June 2026
The Council refuses the request in its entirety (PDF, 163 KB). It reclassifies the request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and relies on regulation 12(5)(e), commercial confidentiality. Its reasoning is that the ecology reports were commissioned to inform the Council's valuation of the land for sale, and that disclosure would allow bidders to drive the price down.
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5 June 2026
The resident requests a formal internal review, arguing that a blanket refusal was applied without considering the request part by part, that the four-part legal test for commercial confidentiality was not made out, that the regulation 12(2) presumption in favour of disclosure was ignored, and that the public interest test was one-sided.
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11 June 2026
The Council acknowledges the review and commits in writing to respond by 3 July 2026.
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2 July 2026
The Information Governance Team emails to say the deadline will be missed and the response will follow "next week".
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13 July 2026
Nothing has arrived. The resident writes again, setting out the missed commitments and reminding the Council of the statutory long-stop under regulation 11(4).
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15 July 2026
Stand Up For Southport and the Liverpool Echo report the Sefton 2030 proposals. Residents learn from the press that Cabinet will consider the site within days, while the information request is still outstanding.
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23 July 2026
Cabinet declares the site surplus and authorises the feasibility licence. The ecology evidence has still not been released.
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29 July 2026
The Council releases six ecology reports (PDF of the covering response, 220 KB), two days before the statutory long-stop and six days after the Cabinet decision. One report is redacted. Two of the Council's own answers are contradicted by the reports it has just disclosed.
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30 July 2026
A separate request for environmental information is submitted to Natural England, covering its correspondence with Sefton Council about this site.
Three and a half months, one refusal, three missed deadlines and a formal internal review to obtain surveys that the Council had already paid for with public money, about publicly owned land, next to a protected coast. We think that is worth recording.
What is still missing
The July release was substantial, but it did not answer everything. Four things are outstanding, and we have asked for all of them:
- The Preliminary Ecological Appraisal by Kingdom Ecology Ltd, January 2022. The Council's own bat report lists it as Appendix 3 and describes its findings, but the appendix supplied is an empty divider page.
- The further great crested newt survey recommended by the Council's own ecologist. Either it was never carried out, in which case the evidence base is incomplete on the consultant's own advice, or it exists and has not been released.
- The pre-application advice from the Merseyside Environmental Advisory Service, reference SF22-025, dated 17 February 2023. The Council says the 2022 pre-application closed with no report provided. Three of its own disclosed reports quote that document by name, reference and date.
- The redacted parts of the NVC survey: Figure 1, the vegetation map, paragraphs 5.2 to 5.6, and the species lists. The equivalent habitat map in the invertebrate report was released in full, which makes the redaction difficult to justify.
We will publish whatever comes back, whether it helps our argument or not.
A note on how we use these documents
We quote them exactly and we give the paragraph number, so anyone can check. Where a document says something inconvenient for us, we say so too. Two examples, both from the reports above: the Local Plan figure of 120 homes is an indicative capacity, not a legal cap, and the NVC survey expressly records that no legally protected plant species were found on the site.
Being right matters more to this campaign than sounding alarming. If you spot an error, please tell us and we will correct it.