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100m Baltic station delays are 'bane of my life' admits Metro Mayor

There had been hopes work could begin on the site by the end of this year

[How the new Baltic station could look]

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How the new Baltic station could look

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has admitted delays to a planned new 100m Liverpool city centre train station have become the bane of his life. It was revealed in January how despite planning permission being granted, a contractor had yet to be appointed to start work on Liverpool Baltic.

The planned station, seen as a key part of the Mayors Merseyrail for All pledge, will be created by redeveloping the disused former St James Station, which lies beneath the Baltic Triangle a former industrial area now filled with creative and hospitality businesses between the city centre and the south of the city.

The application site involves an existing cutting to the Northern Line of the Merseyrail network, located midway between Liverpool Central Station and Brunswick Station, where an underground train station once stood but was closed in 1917 during the First World War.

Mr Rotheram admitted he had become frustrated by delays and the project would now not start before the end of this year as he had hoped. Redevelopment of the long unused stop on the edge of the city centre was announced in 2022 with the Mayor aiming to get passengers on track by late 2027.

Speaking on BBC Radio Merseyside on Wednesday, Mr Rotheram explained how he felt about the current status of the project. He said: Bane of my life. I was saying to officers I want you to act more quickly and they were saying it was going to start in 2028 and I was saying no chance, we need that to be far sooner.

I wanted it to start by the end of this year to tell you the truth. It looks like thats not going to happen. It is hoped development of the station could support hundreds of jobs and deliver 17,000 journeys per day once open.

[The Baltic stop has taken a major step forward with funding now allocated]

View 3 Images

How the station could look

Desire for a new station dates back to 2012, with the identification of the reopening of the former St James Station as vital to the success of the Baltic Triangles development. In March 2014, Merseytravel agreed to collaborate with Liverpool Vision to investigate the cost and projected usage of reopening the station.

Mr Rotheram confirmed the scheme would still go ahead but bemoaned the difficulty in getting sign off from relevant parties to get things moving.

He said: Itll start much later than we wanted it to, thats because the station were going to build is on live rails and were trying to get something called possessions, which is to stop those trains running for certain periods and to run bus replacement services.

[The site of the historic train station is set to be brought back into use]

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The site of the historic train station is set to be brought back into use(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)

Its safer to do it that way but we have to get permissions from the rail authorities and that is a bureaucratic nightmare, which is every time I talk about rail, I talk about the fragmentation, its just debilitating really. I was so enthused about the plans that came forward and I wanted that to happen quickly.

Its not happening as quickly as we wanted it to happen.

By January 2015, Merseytravel confirmed plans to conduct a study on the stations potential reopening during the 201516 financial year with it marked as a top rail project by Merseyrail a year later.

The main station building will be situated on a triangular plot bordered by Stanhope Street to the south, Ashwell Street to the east and north, and the Merseyrail Northern railway line cutting to the west.

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