Liverpool to greenlight further Sandhills station updates
Merseytravel is seeking permission to upgrade the station to cope with increased passenger numbers since the opening of Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium.
After the installation of a new footbridge to accommodate the thousands of Everton supporters who use the station following the club’s move from Goodison Park to Liverpool’s waterfront, additional improvements are now planned.
Operated by Merseyrail, Sandhills is the closest train station to Hill Dickinson Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which can hold 54,000 fans.
Matchdays throughout the 2025/26 season saw a spike in users of the station, prompting safety concerns.
As a result, Merseyrail is seeking to expand capacity of Sandhills and create destination specific queues as part of the crowd management strategy.
Planning documents submitted to Liverpool City Council state that it has “become evident that the station’s continued ability to cope with the demand seen on match/event days requires further improvements to able to efficiently and effectively handle the volume of pedestrian traffic being generated”.
Owen Ellis Architects worked with Merseytravel on the application, which can be found by searching reference 26F/1465 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal.
At the same meeting, Liverpool City Council’s planning committee is recommended to approve plans for a temporary 5,000 sq ft marquee for events at Allerton Golf Club.
The tent is required so that the club can continue to host events over the next three years while it is waiting to build a 66-bed hotel that was approved at appeal two and a half years ago.
The interim solution is required as the hotel project has been held up by a range of factors including the post-Covid leisure market downturn, and its “gradual but rather than immediate” recovery, and the rising cost of borrowing, according to planning documents.
Brock Carmichael Architects and Roman Summer Associates are advising Allerton Golf Trading.
To learn more, search for reference number 26F/0174 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal.
Another failure by LCC to properly plan for the impact of the opening of the Hill Dickinson. This will be the 2nd piece of work to make Sandhills Station suitable for accommodating match day passenger numbers.
What actual assessment was made between the start of the development of HDS and the beginning of the 2025 season?
This is just part of the chaos that has resulted from the poor planning and preparation for the impact of event days on Waterfront North. How long will local traffic and businesses be disrupted by this Saturday’s match against Crystal Palace?
Wouldn’t everything have been much better if the “promised” new station close to Walter Street have been built – not just for the visitors to HDS but for the current and predicted residents of Vauxhall and Waterfront North (365 days of the year)!
Compared to the cost of a new station it may not be very much but over £5 milllion has already spent by Merseyrail on adapting Sandhills and the funding for 26F/0174 is about another £2.5 million.
By Concerned WaterfrontNorth
Never mind upgrading Sandhills station….the Northern Line needs a brand new station right next to the stadium. Pull your finger out Rotherham!
By Old Hall Street
More sticking plaster over an ongoing problem that requires more meaningful attention. In the near future there should be summer events planned for next year too, including music concerts at the stadium. The remediation work at Central Docks is progressing and hopefully the first residential proposals will be announced. In the meantime where is our ever silent Mayor, is he not planning a new station at Vauxhall, as if so he needs to act on this now as we know how long it takes to design and build these things eg Liverpool Baltic Station.
By Anonymous
Merseytravel and Liverpool city council only had 4/5 years to plan for this while the stadium was being built. Anyone from any background would have known this urgently needed doing as soon at the first spade went into the ground. It’s utter incompetence from merseytravel and more importantly Liverpool city council. Both couldn’t run a bath!
By Djsjtj
Neither Merseytravel nor the council has covered itself in glory here. No-one, of course, will face any sanctions for such evident incompetence.
By More Anonymous than the Others
Shocking
By Anonymous
LCC should have put far more thought and possibly restrictions on the development of the stadium 5 years ago. Instead they saw a shiny new development they could brag about and moved on. I have bleated about the following before but, a tram loop from Hill Dickinson to the (maybe) James St/Moorfields area is not too difficult. There are 1000’s of new homes due on this stretch with minimal parking. Lets make access easy and cheap, we had one before with the overhead. I went to Copenhagen Royal Arena earlier this year – out in the sticks a bit, serviced by driverless trains every 8 minutes -doddle. Toronto FC are serviced by similar again a breeze, although the footie wasn’t as good =)..
By P C McGarry
They also need to,open up the riverside walkway asap . Some temporary work needed by the dockers clock and fencing off the development site . This would take thousands walking into town off local roads …so making access to the ground easier for buses etc
By George
@ PC McGarry, whenever trams get mentioned to Mayor Steve he goes into a defensive panic mode. He says building a tram network will cost £2.5b but he doesn’t seem to get that you don’t build your tram network all at once you do it in stages and start with a section costing say £300m, maybe from Lime St station, along Dale St/Water St, then down along the Dock Rd to the Everton stadium.
This would then serve not just the stadium but also all the newly built apartments along the waterfront. Then in future years other sections can be added to the tram network, like they’ve done in Seville, Marseille, and elsewhere.
By Anonymous
@ Anonymous 4.12pm – Agree with what you said.. I’m not the biggest traveller but wherever I go, I normally use public transport, even crappy trains in Portugal. All are on time, cheap to use and therefore popular. As with the Stadium, the upcoming apartments along the front, should be a clear call for this to be started. While we’re at it, how’s about a decent, reliable link to the airport from the city centre…
By P C McGarry
I do not understand why there can not be another station opened nearer to the Hill Dickinson stadium.LCC and Merseytravel have had 4tom5 years to sort the infrastructure around the Hill Dickinson stadium , we are a laughing stock as well as a season ticket holder I have been to the rugby events at HL and when you speakTo people visiting the area they all say the same. What a drag it is to get into your stadium.if this was Manchester it would be well sorted. Get your act together Rotherham you do a lot of talking but not a lot of action what happens to the talk about the Bendy buses etc etc .maybe we should have elections to vote a new mayor in
By PJM
What? A stadium has been built near to the station, someone should have mentioned that
By Ben
Steve always takes the safe, short term option doesn’t he?
By Anonymous
Why was this not done prior to the stadium opening. None of the capacity problems were unexpected.
By Stephen Hill
How can they only be thinking about this now? They have known for years that the upgrade was needed but all they have done is put out some barriers to herd supporters into a queue for their train. Add to this the fact that there are often only 4 carriages on matchdayss it shows how incompetent they are.
By Anonymous
Has anyone tried to use transport to liverpool airport take your case on a bus no space to put it normal buses
And if there is prams on bus you can’t get on
As for sandshills station a second station was planned before ground was started. ?
Now they are planning to get a bus from st helens to the liverpool airport?
Talk a good job don’t they no investment to do this
By Bob
The article doesn’t actually explain what is planned for the station!
By George
Hi George, the following line outlines the plans: As a result, Merseyrail is seeking to expand capacity of Sandhills and create destination specific queues as part of the crowd management strategy. More details can be found by searching the app ref number in the article. Cheers, Dan
By Dan Whelan
Must have been a big surprise to them, a 54000 seater stadium appearing out of nowhere!
By Geoff
Why don’t we teach planning officers and project managers across the public sector how to plan?
In industry this would have been “war-gamed” considering all possible scenarios years ago. [Probably would never have got authorisation/funding for the HDS to be built].
By Anonymous
Build a new station near Vauxhall for residents and daily use, it would be viable now. Then on post-matchdays and post-concert days Sandhills could be used for Northbound passengers only and Vauxhall for city and Southbound passengers, this would help to lessen the crowd pressures for the hour or so after events.
By Anonymous
With the new stadium now up and running.will be possible to build a new umbrella track like it was in the past.even when the stadium is not in use,it would serve as a tourist attraction.have it built along the original route as well.if possible build it to the airport also.
By Anonymous
They’re not going to open a new station near the HD, even with the central docks development, because both are going to be serviced by the bendy buses – whenever that is
By Anonymous
LCC haven’t got a clue
By Anonymous
Sandhills station is close enough to the ground there is no need for another station, it’s easy enough to walk. Having said that The Mayor and his senior staffed were asleep when the original plan went in. It’s a shambles and other forms of transport including trams are needed for both grounds. The problem with Rotherham is he won’t tight for the resources for the area like Andy did in Manchester he does as he’s told. Bendy buses and cycle racks aren’t good enough.
By Anonymous
I love a bendy double ender!
By Bus Geek
@By Bus Geek Me too lol
By Anonymous
RE Anonymous at 11:04 am:
Sure you can walk to Sandhills but the consequences of so many people making this trip is a nightmare for businesses and local transport around Derby Road/Great Howard Street. The road closures for safety reasons on Saturday after the friendly against Lille were bad enough. The impact of Saturday’s match against Crystal Palace is likely to be enormous.
By bu
People need to get over themselves. It’s a 15 MINUTE WALK from Sandhills station. If that feels like a trek then you probably need to do more exercise. Luckily, you can start by walking to and from Sandhills Station.
And there ARE plans for more transport. Rotherham announced that glider buses will go to the stadium, the airport and Anfield. Yes, trams would be better, and yes it would be better if it had been done 5 years ago, but we’ve had austerity governments for years until now. Things are changing
By Anonymous
In cricket parlance Steve Rotheram is the proverbial straight bat, just dull and plodding. There’s no vision, excitement, or panache, he might score the odd century but takes a very long time to do it. So with most of his, or his team’s, projects they have low horizons and produce incomplete outcomes. Sandhills just plods along when something dynamic is required, but isn’t this like Littlewoods, Baltic Station, Woodside Ferry, and others. Our Metro system needs expanding but that never seems to enter his mind and no grand plan emerges,so all we get is a couple of new stations maybe every 10 years.
By Anonymous
It took 5 years to think about destination ques, they should be looking at sidings/additional platforms allowing trains to stack. On match days other trains get cancelled so as to accomidate match day trains from Central
By Bill
The ineptness of LCC and the Combined Authority knows no bounds.
By Anonymous
Another example of public sector incompetence. Doesn’t matter if it’s local or national government. They both work on the reactive not proactive principle.
By Anonymous
The experience post match is not a good one. On Saturday I collapsed in a hot, overcrowded carriage. I can’t thank the staff at Maghull enough for the way they dealt with me, but that carriage was packed like a tin of sardines and should never have been allowed to leave Sandhills like that.
By Dave
Dave 11.53am, sympathies for you and hope you’re ok, but away games in London on the tube are just the same with packed trains before and after games. Be interesting to know if you were in a 4 or 8 car train, and if the air-con was on. Merseyrail should stop ordering 4 car trains as they can’t cope on a daily basis when people on the Northern Line are trying to get to and from work, they need to do a compromise and order 6-car trains from Stadler in future.
By Anonymous
Why can’t everton set up coaches outside goodison park to take supporters to the hill dickenson stadium. And would easily cut the queues at sandhills railway station surely.
By David vale
There is space for a station building opposite the Tobacco warehouse to serve Hill Dick’ and Liverpool Waters. Platforms can go on the viaduct. Sandhills does those going north, new station does south. Gives two extra platforms.
By John
Before the stadium was built, expanding the station would b viewed as aiding a private football club to make money. Now, with poor transport the stadium has had sell outs in most games, and attracting fifty thousands visitors from outside the LCR for special events like rugby. So, expanding the station is viewed as not aiding a private concern to make money, but aiding the people of the LCR and the city in general.
By John
@Anonymous 6:22 wrote:
”there ARE plans for more transport. Rotherham announced that glider buses will go to the stadium, the airport and Anfield.”
This is a cheap an ineffective solution – window dressing. Liverpool has a metro, the city should use it, and use it well.
By John
@John – only Rotheram calls it Metro, it’s Merseyrail to everyone else, his bendy busses have a larger road footprint that double deckers and overall will carry less people. Really needs strategic thinking re a tram system to go to the areas Merseyrail doesn’t serve. Whoever negotiates the grants with government isn’t up to it, TfGM always get more.
By Anonymous