Major change coming to Merseyrail station ahead of Everton stadium move

A major change to the closest station to Everton’s new ground at Bramley Moore Dock has been given the go-ahead as the area prepares for an influx of thousands of fans. Liverpool Council has signed off on a planning application for the creation of a fan management zone at Sandhills station.

As the nearest Merseyrail stop for the new stadium on the banks of the River Mersey, it will be a key transport hub for Blues and visiting fans getting to and from the arena and city centre. As a result, special arrangements are being made to accommodate the numbers of people expecting to use the narrow access to Sandhills and its single island platform.

According to documents submitted to the local authority by Merseytravel, the organisation has developed plans with Everton, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, British Transport Police, Liverpool Council and Merseyrail to deal with the increased footfall. The Toffees’ new stadium will boast a capacity of 52,888 - an increase of around 13,000 people on Goodison Park.

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An operational management statement said: “The results of this work indicate that although the platforms at Sandhills and the trains serving the station could accommodate and process the volume of predicted additional passengers expected to use the services in a reasonable time period, the access to the platforms is constrained, and this places a limitation on the number of passengers that can access/egress the platform at times of likely high demand.” The proposed solution is to develop a new pedestrian waiting area dedicated and specifically designed to accommodate and safely manage passengers at periods of peak demand.

The zone will be located on land owned by Merseytravel adjacent to the station and used at the end of football matches and other major events, until they can be dispatched safely onto train services. The requirement for this facility was specified in the Section 106 Agreement of an existing, approved planning application for the new stadium.

During the rest of the year the zone would revert back to its current use, which is for storage of rail related equipment or activity related to the operation of rail replacement bus services. Intending passengers will enter the zone from Sandhills Lane, and then be directed towards the queuing lane for their destination.

Passengers with reduced mobility will be diverted from the main queue by staff, and held in a separate area so they can be given priority to access the station platform via the existing accessible ramps. Users will move through the barrier/queuing system until they can be directed up onto the platform in readiness to board the next available train to their destination.