ONE of England's most beautiful sand dune and pinewood coastal areas is to become a red squirrel refuge.
The National Trust said the Sefton Coast Woodlands, part of its Formby Estate on Merseyside, is to be the UK's third national red squirrel refuge.
It is being launched at the start of Red Squirrel Week by Red Alert, a partnership of 120 organisations and individuals committed to protecting the threatened species.
The woodlands will be surrounded by a three- mile buffer zone in a bid to stop the movement of grey squirrels into the refuge area and safeguard the future of the much-loved red creatures.
Red squirrels were once found throughout most of the UK.
But the distribution of them has fallen dramatically in the last 100 years with the break-up of their woodland habitats and the spread of the larger, more dominant North American grey squirrel.
As a result, red squirrels have only a few remaining habitats - mostly the coniferous forests of Scotland, Wales and northern England.
There are about 160,000 red squirrels left in the UK, as against 2.5m greys.
About 1,000 red squirrels thrive in the pine woods around Formby and district, where a mainstay of their diet is pine cones.
