Why is Old Hall Marshes car park now closed at weekends since 1st February 2020.

Here is the letter that was going around about this.

A very disappointing decision by the RSPB.

That’s very sad, particularly if local RSPB members who work Monday-Friday and then find the car park closed at weekends, and it often the only time that lots of people have to go birdwatching such as at Old Hall Marshes. It just seems a crazy idea by the RSPB, when more people have Saturday and Sunday not working. I just found out by looking at the list of RSPB reserves as i often do, but not the reason this had happen. I couldn’t see any of the RSPB staff or volunteers had posted anything publicly about this anywhere else on any of the RSPB websites and I couldn't find out why this had happened at Old Hall Marshes even by googling. Anyway thank you for posting why the RSPB have done this.

I was caught out by this today - had to park in Tollesbury, turning my 6 mile walk into a 10 mile walk! I had planned the walk from OS map, and only discovered that Old Hall Marshes was an RSPB site (with car park) once I looked at Google maps. I checked the RSPB website to confirm whether I would, as a non-member, be able to use the car park and that public rights of way were still as per my map. At no point did I see anything to suggest the car park was closed at weekends, though I did see that it closed at 5pm. Interestingly, the charming lady resident I spoke to said that it was due to illegal raves that the car park was now closed at weekends!

Sadly with cuts happening in every organisation as well as charities I can’t see any changes in the near future. I do know over the 3-5 years sadly things have changed and the reason where unavoidable, as on this forum when we all knew, all of the moderators on here who always used to post on these forums including every day, every evening and into the weekend as well. Sadly the moderators don't post  on here any more or very rarely. Also it’s a similar situation within other areas of the RSPB as well. And at the present time it will only get worse, as has happened at my local RSPB reserve and lots of other wildlife conservation charities in the UK as well both big and small.

www.morecambeandwise.com/viewpage.aspx

This is why Old Hall Marshes became an RSPB reserve. and it was to do with Eric Morecambe the comedian who was an avid birdwatcher which was only second to him being a comedian.