Liverpool's Metro Mayor has quashed the notion of conjuring up new platforms "like Harry Potter", as plans for a new rail line linking Liverpool to Manchester move forward. Steve Rotheram, alongside Greater Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham, presented proposals to government officials earlier this week, advocating for a new Liverpool-Manchester rail link.
The pair believe that this railway could form the backbone of wider plans for a "Northern Arc." The proposed line, stretching from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly, could potentially inject a £15bn boost into the economy.
Rotheram and Burnham will urge the government to honour the £17bn allocated last year for the rail link. This project could also act as a catalyst for the wider regeneration of Liverpool Central station.
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Long-standing discussions about the redevelopment of Lime Street were highlighted in the report presented to Whitehall by both Mayors, with the station already operating beyond capacity. Rotheram explained to the LDRS how the broader plan to develop the new rail line could facilitate improvements to both city locations.
Mayor Rotheram said: "If you think about Central station, which is the busiest underground station outside of London, and the growth that we're still seeing in passengers using rail and certainly Merseyrail, and what we want to do with Merseyrail for All, then Central Station is no longer fit for purpose. We need to do something to increase its capacity and to potentially put more platforms in and at this moment, it's constrained because it's a single tunnel.
"Central could become a massive new gateway into the city centre of Liverpool, and then alongside that we need to do more on Lime Street, but we can't continually push more services into Lime Street, everyone will know that it squeezes through a tunnel so you've got a bottleneck and you need distance between rail infrastructure and trains, so that there's no crossover and accidents. We have to do more with Liverpool Lime Street, but it's not like Harry Potter, we haven't got a platform there that doesn't exist, but that's where government thinking was, they just wanted to squeeze more and more services.
"We want to do other things with Lime Street and so the option for us is to use Central and then if you link Central and Lime Street underground, think about what the potential of that might be for rail users and for the city centre redevelopment, but that's only part of the overall plans and proposals, which are really ambitious for both Liverpool and Manchester."
The Liverpool City Region is exploring options to enhance connectivity to Liverpool Airport, with an underground tunnel from Liverpool South Parkway being considered. Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram outlined the challenges and potential solutions, stating: "Unfortunately the infrastructure currently doesn't go close enough to the airport, and we can't bend a railway line around to try to get closer, so we have to find alternatives, and that's what we've been examining."
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He further explained the ongoing efforts, saying: "There's a few things we might be able to do, at some stage, I think it'll be appropriate for us to let people know what they are, but plans are being developed now and discussions are going on with the airport about what we can do to better align those two things, because people get to Liverpool South Parkway and then normally go across the infrastructure that we've got and the buses or taxis and walking to the airport, and actually we need something that gets people there easier, more quickly and cheaply as well, and they're the things that we're looking at.
"The route out of Lime Street or out of central would be different, and that's why they need some careful consideration because there's a huge cost associated with doing anything that tunnels underground, but either of those options, they come out and then they will go to a Liverpool gateway and there have four or five options for us to consider, but they can be close to a motorway, for instance, and there's several options, therefore, so it could become close to other amenities, but they would have to have developmental opportunity."
Development prospects are a significant aspect of the broader rail scheme, which leaders anticipate will stimulate the construction of housing, schools, and related community infrastructures. The hope is that such projects will significantly enhance local services, as signalled by Mr Rotheram's comments.
He outlined: "This also includes something called Merseyrail for All, and we're trying to extend the routes and the network that Merseyrail currently offer and they can go all over the city region now because of the battery technology that we've got on our trains. It means that we can connect people up onto a really good rail network to go either back towards Liverpool or eastwards towards Manchester and Leeds.
"The whole thing is not either or. We shouldn't think of ourselves as, these things have been given to us as a benefit."