Here’s what the reporter found when visiting Wirral Council-owned ‘dogging hotspot’

Hundreds of thousands of readers were fascinated last week by concerns over reported “dogging” on council-owned sites.

The concerned Wirral resident in question claimed “dozens” of people can be seen at any time performing sex acts in “broad daylight” at the ‘Gunsite’ car park at North Wirral Coastal Park in Leasowe, also raising concerns over the nearby publicly-owned Bayview Drive car park.

At the time, police gave a stark warning to anyone getting involved in the act – sex in public watched by other people – saying they would take further action if “activity” continues to raise concerns within the community.
The council urged anyone witnessing “anti-social behaviour”, to report it to the police “as soon as possible”.

With that in mind, we decided to head to the coastal sites ourselves to investigate exactly what was going on.

And while it isn’t 100% certain there was any dogging on the night in question, there were certainly some creepy goings on – and plenty of activity.

We entered the North Wirral Coastal Park at around 9pm on a dark, drizzly Wednesday evening, with the car doors firmly locked.

It wasn’t long before we found signs of life – coming to a stop as we approached a car parked alone along the coastal path, around 200 yards ahead, with another vehicle soon passing us to join it.
Suddenly, one of the cars fled, speeding past ours – seemingly spooked (was it a dogger getting cold feet?).

We followed on, but it was travelling at some speed, and lost us, appearing to have left the popular country park.

But as we drove out and away from the coast, there suddenly appeared a large boulder blocking our path – too big to have missed on the way in – and that would have caused some significant damage to any moving vehicle.

We were more than a little spooked by this, it had definitely been placed on the path after we had driven to the site. But by who? And what did it mean?

Still at the park, we momentarily pulled over to consider what to do next.

Sitting looking out once more over the Irish Sea, the original car was still in place, and we came to a stop at the same place as minutes before.

Soon enough, the car was joined once more by a second. This time, both stopped for a short while before one left again.

Driving slowly towards us, it caused panic and alarm as the car flashed its lights at us. Was it a sign? Had we finally found a real ‘dogger’?

We sat bolt upright in our car seats as it continued to flicker its headlights, before, to our relief, driving past – out of sight.

Thinking we had seen all we were going to see, we too turned around to leave the park.

But as we drove away from the coast and towards the main road again, we were slightly terrified to see that boulder had been removed.

That must have meant someone had stopped their car and got out to push it off the road and into the shrubbery – all the while we were sat on the coastal path for a matter of minutes.

There was definitely something going on, and not knowing kind of terrified us.

It’s very difficult to comprehend the spooky happenings, and we’re probably best left not thinking about it.

The second site in question was the Bayview Drive car park next to the nearby Derby Pool Harvester.

This site, also council-owned, is so close to the family-orientated seaside restaurant, it was hard to believe anything untoward goes on here, but nonetheless, in we drove.

Here too, we seemed to scare off other cars – with the only vehicle at the site leaving as soon as we arrived.

A handful of others tentatively approached the car park over the next few minutes – before leaving.

After maybe 10 minutes of staking out the site, a car containing a driver and no passengers came to a stop around 50 yards away.

But even moving our car to “test the waters” and flash our headlights at it, we got little response, and decided it was again time to leave. We considered our welcome firmly overstayed.

Even having found no concrete evidence of any dogging, there is certainly something untoward happening in these parts of North Wirral at the dead of night.

They are serene areas with incredible views out over the Irish Sea – some of the most beautiful the UK has to offer, attended daily by hundreds of families, pleasure seekers and dog walkers.

But what we saw at the ‘Gunsite’ proved what happens there at night is something quite different.

Taking place hundreds of yards away from any sort of main road, it’s certainly not for the faint-hearted – or wimps like us.