'Our stations aren't like something out of Harry Potter'Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram explains how multi-billion rail line could transform city centre locationsCommentsNewsDavid Humphreys Local

Democracy Reporter08:00, 17 May 2025New images show what a rebuilt and revamped Liverpool Central Station could look like(Image: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) Liverpool stations

can’t pluck new platforms out of magic “like Harry Potter” according to the city region’s Metro Mayor as plans for a new rail line connecting the city to Manchester have been unveiled.

Earlier this week, Steve Rotheram, alongside Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, presented plans to government officials calling on them to back proposals for a new Liverpool to

£15bn boost to the economy.

‌ Mr Rotheram and Mr Burnham will ask for the government to make good on proposals for £17bn allocated for the rail link last year. It would also act as a catalyst for the wider generation

of Liverpool Central station.

‌ The redevelopment of Lime Street has also been long discussed with the report both Mayors presenting to Whitehall outlining it already operating beyond capacity. Mr Rotheram explained to

the ECHO how the wider plan to develop the new rail line could enable improvement to both city locations.

He 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.

Article continues below "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.

New images show what a rebuilt and revamped Liverpool Central Station could look like(Image: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) “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.

‌ One of the five stations on the proposed route would include Manchester Airport, which has prompted questions in the Liverpool City Region as to what could be done to connect Liverpool

John Lennon Airport to rail infrastructure in a similar way. It is the ECHO’s understanding that plans are being considered for the development of an underground tunnel between Liverpool

South Parkway to the airport.

Mr Rotheram set out how the combined authority is going about that work to further connect the airport. He said: “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.

“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.

‌Liverpool Lime Street station(Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror) “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.”

It is developmental opportunities that could also come as part of the wider rail project, which leaders hope could bring about housing, schools and associated community facilities. It could

also lead to greater improvements of local services, as Mr Rotheram explained.

Article continues belowAndy Burnham with Steve Rotheram at Lime Street Station He said: “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.”