Due to upgrade work on the visitor centre entrance and to keep our visitors safe while there is heavy machinery on-site, we must temporarily close Mere Sands Wood from 4 January 2022. 

The car park, café and toilets will remain closed throughout January, while the nature reserve itself will still be accessible on foot, via public footpaths and the reserve trails. The hides will remain open too, so you can watch the winter ducks on the lakes and maybe even spot a kingfisher hunting.

Don't worry if you have a parking pass - parking pass holders will have their passes extended by one month automatically.  

Thanks to funding from Lancashire Environmental Fund and Casey, we are extending the open water habitat around the entrance to the visitor centre. This will better support dragonflies and amphibians including common darters and newts, whilst allowing our visitors to get closer to nature. We'll be retaining as much of the existing reedbed as possible and enhancing the area with some additional marginal aquatic plants. 

As part of the project we are also building a boardwalk and pond dipping area for local schools to use, along with our existing classroom facilities. 

We are hoping to re-open the car park after around one month. We will update our social media pages with further information as soon as we can. 

Thank you for your understanding as we continue to improve the visitor facilities and wildlife areas at Mere Sands Wood.