Well, you couldn't make it up... First, rough weather spreads building materials (expanding foam etc) around the island from some sort of half-done repair job on a cave, threatening environmental damage, as well as mess dangerous to wildlife - and now the foam or something has caught fire in the cave! Toxic fumes were drifting across the island last night. Hilbre is a very special place and at the moment it's being trashed. It needs a higher level of protection than it has, and to be treated with a lot more respect. Wake up, Council! The fire service has put it out of bounds for public safety, so no-one can go out there - on the best August Bank Holiday for ages. the Friends of Hilbre Island must be tearing their hair out.

Classic, the workmen were there to reinforce the overhang but the result of what has happened is that the overhang is in now in more danger of collapse.

I'm curious why the fire was not put out last night, they chose to leave it burning, it was still smoking this morning over 12 hours after it started.

Fire pics here, its absolutely heartbreaking:

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hilbre-island-cave-still-burning-16814408

I suppose they were trying, in their cack-handed, ill-thought-out way, to make things better - but they've actually made things worse. Erosion of the sandstone by the sea is enough of a worry on the island, without the effects of the fire compounding the problem.

For the hat-trick, the Council have been talking instead of doing and the tide has washed out a lot of the burnt remnants and spread it everywhere.

Very high tides this weekend too.

The company doing the work should be identified.

The contractor has unofficially been named. The company is a well established family run local firm employing about 50 people, I've never heard anything bad about them and they appear to me to normally be a fairly tidy firm.

However until the cause of the fire and contract details are known it would be unfair to point a finger.

Being a structural repair to a specific problem I would presume the tender document from the Council would be fairly detailed including the infilling of the cave.

Likewise I would presume the contractor's method statement would have been looked at in detail and approved before work started.

The contractors performed the clean-up of the initial material spill at their own cost.

But do they have experience working in this kind of environment?

The company is over 30 years old, it’s the council that chose them to do the work.

Well if northwest construction where that clever they should of read the cosh regs first . Plus the council should never agreed to this method of chemical being used .