St Annes Sand Dunes

Find St Annes sand dunes are between the main promenade road and the beach. See them as you travel along Clifton Drive North, the coast road, between Lytham St Annes and Blackpool.

The dunes of St Annes are well known. They stretch from St Annes pier to the boundary of Blackpool South Shore against the tram depot at Squires Gate. They’re an important natural sea defence and a rich wildlife habitat. Find out more about them, how they form, why they’re important and how they’re being extended:

The dunes are also just about the only high spot at this end of the Fylde Coast! A careful climb to the top gives a spectacular seaside view of the beach. Turn around to look inland and you’ll see Blackpool Airport and air traffic arriving and departing.

This is a windy February day!

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Enjoy St Annes Sand Dunes

Enjoy exploring the sand dunes but please respect this natural environment and stick to the signed and established paths. Randomly walking through the dunes can damage them if enough people do it.

No Barbecues

A ‘Public Space Protection Order’ prohibits the use of barbecues in the sand dunes. Sadly, there has been a number of fires in recent years, causing significant damage to this fragile ecosystem. Penalty fines also apply.

Litter and Dog Poo

It should go without saying – PLEASE don’t drop litter. And PLEASE, PLEASE pick up your dog’s poo – and BIN THE BAG! Any bin will do, please don’t leave the bag in the sand dunes!

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The Life of St Annes Sand Dunes

Dunes build up over long periods of time. They evolve out of flat beaches and can grow into quite high hills. Wind blown sand is first trapped by an obstruction on the beach. It builds up but collapses because it’s unstable.

Grass and plant seeds land in these little pockets of sand and start to grow – they begin to hold the wind blown sand in place. Sand couch and lyme grass are pioneer grasses for dunes. They’re more tolerant to immersion in saltwater than marram, and dominate on the foredunes.

Over time, the plants grow and spread. More sand blows against the pile and gets trapped, so the mound gets bigger. Then other species of plant move in, like sea holly and sea spurge.

Of course all these plants make a great habitat for all kinds of different species of insects and animals. If you’re interested in birds, don’t forget to call at the Fairhaven Lake Visitor Centre.

How a sand dune grows

Marram grass is more vigorous and outcompetes the pioneer species – as sand builds up among it the new dune is stabilised. This enables more grass to grow – and so the dune gets bigger.

Plants like marram grass start to grow here because they don’t need soil and can spread easily when they get buried by the sand. By their very nature, sand dunes are constantly on the move and change throughout the year. The plants adapt and change along with the moving sand.

Eventually, the sand becomes fixed into place and more stable, and organic matter builds up when the plants die and decay. The dune no longer looks like a huge sand heap, but is covered with greenery with a variety of plants that are specially adapted to live in places like this. The types of plant which grow depends on whether the dune is made of alkaline shell pieces or acidic mineral grains.

The sand dune environment

Where the dune meets the beach, conditions are normally alkaline because it’s made with lots of sea shell pieces. Alkaline loving plants grow in this part, including things like creeping willow, silver weed and creeping bentgrass.

If there’s enough space for a big dune to form, the ground will get more acidic towards the rear as it moves towards mature grass or woodland. Acid loving plants will grow well in this zone, like heathers, bell heather, sand sedge, lichens and mosses.

Because of the continual changes that take place in a sand dune, their biodiversity is constantly changing too. The plants that live in them are highly specialised to the dry and shifting conditions, and aren’t usually found in other habitats. Except for the ubiquitous dandelion! And these ‘weeds’ are an important early source of food for bees and insects as they come out of hibernation.

Some of the species of plants and animals which you’ll find in the dunes include:

• Dune Helleborine orchid
• Isle of Man cabbage
• Dune pansies
• Sea holly
• Round leaved wintergreen
• Grayling butterfly
• Mining bees
• Common lizard
• Skylark
• Linnet
• Reed bunting

Looking after the ‘Soft’ St Annes Sea Defence

The sand dunes aren’t just important to local wildlife, they are also a vital sea defence. They do an amazing job of absorbing the energy of the sea during storm conditions. The wider the dunes, the more effective they are.

The dunes DO protect from erosion as a result of storm surges (strong winds combined with high tides). These storm conditions can cause exclusive erosional damage, therefore showing that the dunes do an effective job at ‘holding the line’ and protecting the high tide/storm surges from breaching the dunes. We’re in a really unique position where (at the moment) the sand dunes on the Fylde are building up, not eroding. Having said that, they’re quite thin and not as effective a sea defence as they could or should be. That’s predominantly because of urbanisation and coastal squeeze.

Many sand dunes in other UK coastal towns get eroded by rough seas. Fortunately that hasn’t happened so much in St Annes because of the size of the beach. But, large as they are, it’s still important to conserve and extend them.

Why their conservation is important

The dunes were once much more extensive, but when the infrastructure for the towns of Blackpool, Lytham and St Annes were built, a lot of the dunes gave way to hard structures instead.

What’s now left of the dunes is 80% less than there was 150 years ago. They’ve become sandwiched in-between the high tide mark and the town. But they’re the only buffer between the community and the sea. That’s why it’s really important that we protect, and where possible extend, what’s left.

Currently there’s more sand being deposited on the foreshore than is taken away. But we have no idea (geomorphologically) when this is likely to change! Which is why sand-trapping techniques are used, to trap and anchor sand particles as they’re blown onshore by the prevailing wind.

Fylde Sand Dunes Project

Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Fylde Council and Blackpool Council work in partnership on the Fylde Sand Dunes Project. The aim of the project is three-fold:

1. To increase the effectiveness of the dunes as a coastal flood defence
2. To enhance the nature conservation interest of the coastal habitats
3. Enhance public appreciation, enjoyment and education of the dunes and coastline.

The Defra funded project to repair and enlarge the damaged dunes began in March 2013. One of the main aims of the project is to improve the efficiency of the sand dunes and saltmarsh as a soft sea-defence. Widening the dunes by up to 98ft/30m will also improve the natural habitat for a diverse range of animals, birds and 300+ species of plants found here.

• There’s much more here about extending St Annes sand dunes with Christmas trees

Did you know? In the last 150 years, 80% of Lancashire’s dunes have been lost

Extending the Dunes with Dead Christmas Trees

In these next photos you’ll see the progress made to increase the width of the dunes. It’s up to 80m wider in some areas, which is quite an achievement!

Planting dead Christmas trees after the festive season has ended has been a big help in extending the width of the dunes. The branches trap windblown sand and help them to grow. It also reduces the amount of sand blowing onto nearby roads.

It’s interesting to compare the above aerial view in 2020 to the one below, taken just a year later in 2021. You can see how the dune vegetation is that much more dense – in just one year.

Generally the sand accumulation is greater at the Northern end of the project’s boundary (North Beach/Dunes opposite the nature reserve, above). Fencing and Christmas tree ‘planting’ efforts are focussed here to make the most of the windblown sand. The dunes now extend out in this area (North Beach) by almost 80 metres. So this is 80m of coastal protection (and new coastal habitat) that didn’t exist before the project started in 2012/13.

Sand dune succession normally goes from the beach > inland. However due to the factors of infrastructure and coastal squeeze mentioned earlier, St Annes dunes are unable to do that. So the idea is to reverse the succession process and build the dunes up on the foreshore instead.

• Much more about the sand dunes Christmas tree project here

Conservation & Education

There’s a lot more to the project than planting old Christmas trees.

The team and volunteers go into schools and meets community groups, as well as organising coastal events for both children and adults.

Volunteers remove invasive species, such as Japanese knotweed, the Japanese rose, white poplar (below) and sea buckthorn. “Blowholes” created by the wind are thatched over with burnt rose plants. They trap wind-blown sand and fill the holes. Volunteers also plant dune grasses to prevent erosion. Paling fences are installed. They also trap wind-blown sand and help to extend the dunes towards the beach.

St Annes Sand Dunes Events

The Fylde Sand Dunes Project run a series of FREE volunteer-led events in the dunes.

Their guided walks aim to promote the importance of our amazing dunes and to provide information about the project and our local wildlife. The walks are available on the first Sunday of every month. Booking is essential to help with attendance numbers.

For more information about the Fylde Sand Dunes Project or to join events please contact the team.

• Follow their Facebook page
• Information online on their website
• Tel: 07860 954290
• Please mention you saw it on Visit Fylde Coast!

Wetland Slacks

Part of the project involves creation of wetland ‘slacks’ behind some dunes to increase plant and wildlife. A long-term aim is encouragement of rabbit numbers to keep the grass shorter. These measures are all about enhancing the sea-defence aspect of the dunes and increasing public enjoyment of them.

Why don’t you join in?