Dog-friendly walks in Redcar

Coatham Marsh is a Tees Valley Wildlife Trust reserve of lakes, reedbed and old ballast mounds squeezed between Redcar's western edge and the Warrenby steelworks land, and the circuit round the two main waters is a flat two miles. The Trust's instruction on the reserve is blunt and printed on its own page: keep dogs on a lead, clear up after your animals, do not disturb the wildlife. Start from the free Tod Point Road car park halfway along the Warrenby side; paths are surfaced on the south of the reserve and unsurfaced on the north, and several flood after heavy rain. It is a birdwatchers' reserve rather than a running-about one, so this is the walk for a wet January morning when the beach is blowing sand, not for a dog that needs to burn off an hour.

Two and a quarter miles of level promenade running the whole length of Redcar, from the Majuba Road car park at Coatham, past the leisure centre, the Regent cinema and the vertical pier, and on beside Granville Terrace to the Stray car park at the Marske end. The council states dogs are welcome on a lead along the Esplanade all year, including through the summer months when the sand between the Regent and Graffenberg Street is closed to them, which makes this the reliable Redcar walk in July and August. Drop onto the sand at either end and there is no restriction at all: Coatham to the west of the cinema, and the Stray to the east of Graffenberg Street. It is flat, surfaced and wind-blasted, with benches, bins and cafes the whole way, and it takes a wheelchair or a buggy as easily as a dog.