A, National Highways, c Google Earth

The upgraded route was expected to integrate Switch Island to the Port of Liverpool. Credit: Google Earth

Port of Liverpool road refused by Reeves

The chancellor cancelled funding for a multi-million-pound bypass in Sefton as part of wider cuts to planned upgrades to the national road network.

Budget documents confirmed five key projects would be removed from the National Roads Programme in a bid to recoup £1.3bn – the total cost of the plans.

The proposal for a dual carriageway that would link the Port of Liverpool to the country’s main motorway network was deemed to be unworthy of continued funding. It had an estimated cost of between £163m and £335m, according to National Highways.

Plans for the A5036 road were tagged as “unfunded and unaffordable”, especially after the project was postponed in 2023 due to “environmental challenges and ongoing design changes”, according to the Budget.

The road would have been between Switch Island and Princess Way.

In 2022, National Highways identified the A5036 as the main access point to the Port of Liverpool – highlighting that the road was often congested, causing delays in freight distribution.

The proposed route has been subject to local opposition, with some Sefton residents expressing concern about the road’s impact on local biodiversity and the impact on the green space of Rimrose Valley Country Park, which the A5036 would have cut through.

One activist group, Save Rimrose Valley, reacted positively to the news, it said: “The road proposal was the wrong ‘solution’, which would have destroyed the last green space of its kind in what is already a heavily urbanised and polluted part of Liverpool.

“The fact that it was ever on the table is a disgrace and National Highways has serious questions to answer.”

The Port of Liverpool was the only road in the North West to be cut in the Budget. Other road schemes that faced the chop are the A358 Taunton to Southfields, the M27 J8 Southampton, the A47 Great Yarmouth Vauxhall Roundabout, and in the North East, the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham route.

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While many road schemes were cut, some were notably kept on the agenda. The A57, which traverses the Peak District between Manchester and Sheffield, will still go ahead.

A spokesperson Peel Ports, the owner of the Port of Liverpool, said: “The A5036 relief road was a National Highways initiative to upgrade the road infrastructure in Sefton and was not a Peel Ports Group project.

“The decision does however pose major questions for national and local government on how they should manage public, passenger and freight transport.

“The City Region needs investment in road and rail infrastructure to support jobs, businesses and the environment and, as a major contributor to the local economy, the Port of Liverpool plays a role of strategic significance in the future of investment, with strong plans for sustainable growth.

“We welcome discussions with partners at all levels on their long-term, transport options for the future to ensure that the City Region has access to the sustainable infrastructure it needs. In particular, we have long advocated for improved rail access to the Port of Liverpool.”

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Is this what she meant by “growth, growth, growth”?

By Stuart wood

Good stuff. Roads are antiquated infrastructure that are a net loss to taxpayers. Any sensible 21st century government is cancelling and rolling back road spending.

By Anonymous

Badly shortsighted and a victory for the Nimby lobby in Sefton posing as environmentalists living in a concrete jungle, and not largely middle class retirees and public sector types in agreeable suburbs who think traffic is for other people.
Apparently they have suggestions for how the growth of the port – and the new expensive infrastructure at Seaforth – can be sustained without decent access onto the motorway network, which I am sure they have worked with the logistics and shipping industry to develop, and not just Professor Google.
Excellent news for Felixstowe, Southampton Immigham and Holyhead anyway…

By Dock Toad

Excellent work by our local Labour grandees. After all, we can’t have the largest single element of our private sector economy thriving and remaining competitive, now can we?
Next stop: scrap the new cruise terminal, close Liverpool airport and ban tourists from driving to the city.

By Anonymous

great call, now do the rest

By anon

Awful decision. 5 years of this

By Anonymous

A project that improves access to North Liverpool as well as enhancing freight movements was presumably cut because it would be growth accretive

By TJL

I bet LCC are made up .
We don’t need investment or new roads we need bungalows with gardens and vape shops.

By Anonymous

More grim news when will this city learn and become a city ?

By Anonymous

The decision to cancel was right. The rationale was disgraceful. The port as a piece of national infrastructure, in a major UK city, needs better connectivity.

In any other place, proper rail links and an underground road tunnel which does not barrel through one of North Liverpool’s few green spaces should not be “unaffordable”.

Reeves and her Labour party kin are a disgrace and no friends of Liverpool.

By Jeff

A welcome decision. Building yet ANOTHER A road in this area, and through a country park? Nah, was a terrible idea. God forbid our cities be used for anything other than moving motor traffic. Road-building has and never will reduce traffic or be environmental. Induced demand always kicks in and Highways England know this. The job of HE is not to reduce traffic, its to find reasons why a road should be built. A subtle difference. Highways England are fully aware that this would have increased traffic in the area, not reduced it – because that always happens.

By M. I. Grant

We don’t want growth!

By Anonymous

This was never a country park in the first place just scrubland waiting to be developed. Then over time the Nimby lobby and environmentalists realised that if you start calling these areas, large or small, a park or community amenity they use it as a way of blocking development.
The Port of Liverpool has been there hundreds of years and is a lifeblood of our region, blocking its expansion could prove extremely damaging for jobs both at the port and generally.

By Anonymous

Shock horror, Liverpool continues to get a big fat ZERO in any kind of meaningful investment

By GetItBuilt!

No wonder the Government won’t invest money into Liverpool there is no growth or commitment from its leadership

By Anonymous

No wonder Manchester is decades ahead…

By John

Where is Captain chaos when you need him. Oh he is far too busy trying to convince us all that he will deliver the Mersey mirage barrage instead of pressurising this promise busting labour government and helping merseyside flourish commercially and economically. We need big Infrastructure projects like rim rose valley to promote further growth through the port of Liverpool. Already Peel in conjunction with the shipping giant MSC are already bringing ultra large container ships into the port. Volumes will increase dramatically over the next few years. How will the current road network cope. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Liverpool needs an Andy Burnham.

By Stephen Hart

Manchester sadly is still way ahead in the economy, financials and investment – take a trip there one day , it’s like NY – love my city but we need progress

By Big Ed

On top of the ever increasing costs, the issue with this is that it wouldn’t give a direct one-shot route to the freeport/wider docks. There would be a circuitous route from Switch Island cutting through Rimrose Valley and then would have to navigate existing railway lines, roads, houses, commercial premises to drop off traffic at Princess Way that is and would remain a bottleneck and source of significant air pollution.

It always seemed like a lot of money compared to the benefits that it would bring, compared to a full non-stop route from Switch Island to the Freeport such as a tunnel under Dunnings Bridge etc/dropped Dunnings Bridge down with local roads crossing above it with slips roads on/off to those local roads. But then we’d be talking £1bn+ and that just doesn’t stack up.

By JohnMac

Disastrous decision, leaves the growing Port of Liverpool unable to reach motorway, also leaves the residents along the current congested dual carriageway facing continuing pollution, threats to health and noisy congestion.. the so called alternatives tunnels etc are never going to happen. This decision means thousands of jobs that would have come to one of the most deprived communities in the uk will be lost . The whole city region will suffer just cos some local MPs are scared of losing a few votes

By George

@JohnMac billions on a road tunnel to a major port (and/or heaven forbid rail infrastructure) very much does add up.

Just not the way the British government add.

By their calculations, tunnelling under Stonehenge is worth it. Investing similarly in our city to enable growth without killing our people apparently isn’t.

It’s not us, it’s them.

By Jeff

We had the Eurovision we’re fine

By Fly that flag

So, if Rachel Reeves can’t find £163 to £335 million (so assume £400 million) for a road, she’s not going to find twelvety squillion for whatever a tunnel under Bootle might cost is she? But thanks for the suggestion, armchair economists and transport planners!
I’d like to propose that, in the interests of the climate or whatever, Rimrose Valley is now entirely re-wilded with wolves and poisonous plants, surrounded by high electrified fences to keep out the nimby dogwalkers, and a 100% surcharge applied to the Council Tax bills of anyone who signed a petition, to be used to support alternative job creation efforts.

By Blue Route

We will remain a museum.

By Mark

Liverpool is more like new York than Manny is

By Anonymous

If a road/infrastructure project of this size had been put forward to service any city or port in the south of the country then it would have been given the green light to get it done years ago but no because it is for a city and a port in the north of the country then it is bound to be knocked back because I firmly believe that when it comes to major projects like this that there really is a north/south bias with all the really big money going the south’s way. I really love my city but clearly those that make the really big decisions don’t whatever party is in power. This decision is yet another backward step for the city and for the region as a whole.

By Brendan R

On the one hand, we have the west coast’s largest deep sea port, the wellspring of an entire city-region’s economy, with 27,000 jobs directly reliant upon it and accounting for roughly £5bn of the city-region’s GDP.
On the other, we have a fantasy of a tidal barrage, beyond the funding capabilities of even the biggest consortium and which poses untold engineering risks and cost over-runs. It’ll never happen.
Which one do you think our genius of a mayor opposes, and which does he support? There’ll be no prizes for guessing.

By Anonymous

Money is always found for infrastructure if it’s near London though

By Billy

There must be a solution to this? Instead of Mayor Rotherham galivanting around America he’d be better getting his transport team to work with partners to develop an affordable alternative scheme that works for all?

By Anonymous

Why move containers by road when there is a rail link. Use a shuttle train to a road/rail container terminal outside Liverpool.

By Anonymous

Because it’s such a breathtaking beautiful place to protect lol
A few people against this and what happened it was stopped lol

By Anonymous

Who wants to be like Manchester anyway. It was the right decision.

By Bixteth boy

All these cost-benefit reviews seem to be “business cases” or a profit & loss project analysis not taking the wider “regional and national economic” benefits into account.

By Anonymous

Yes Bixteth 12.32am, who wants to be like Manchester ? Successful, modern thinking, outgoing , lots of jobs and investment. Here in Liverpool we can sit back and admire our acres of wasteland, half finished buildings, and hope that the Port of Liverpool stagnates while we fail to give our remaining industries the infrastructure they need.

By Anonymous

More economical nonsense from the chancellor. Also she stopped the Christmas Winter Fuel payment to 10 million people, yet forget to mention the money she received from the previous government to cover expenses on her private home costs.

The Port of Liverpool is vital to the United Kingdom Economy, It is not a small business unit. The Port of Liverpool provides employment to the entire North West of England and also North Wales. The Catchment Area includes Derbyshire to Cumberland, no longer does the Port of Preston or Port of Manchester exist.
Where are the voices of the entire Merseyside Soviet /Labour Councillors. Silence is as loud as the Simon and Garfunkel song.

By Anonymous

I am happy for the people of Bootle that their park has been reprieved.But those of us who have continually opposed it being destroyed should not drop our guard.
Perhaps now they might concentrate their thoughts back to the rail link which would get all of the containers to and from the port thereby continuing to improve the economy of the north west and the country. Is there anyone big and bold enough to put this back on the agenda ?? Steve ?

By Geoff

If the petty differences were buried between the two cities, we could build an economic powerhouse, along the M62. Manchester isn’t big enough to carry the North’s whole economy like London carries the South’s,but a population of 6 million would certainly be a forced to be reckoned with. This parochialism goes on and on.

By Elephant

Does she realise what this means
The A5036 Dunningsbridge is jam packed
Pollution is increasing and Peel are winning new orders by the month. They won’t even build an overpass for kids to get to school
Did she offer any alternatives such as better rail..I didn’t see it.

By Sid

Over recent years I have formed the impression that Steve Rotheram is not the dynamic, visionary, Mayor that the Liverpool Region needs. Surely the Port is of extreme importance to our area but he appears to have remained silent on getting improved road access to and from the docks. On others issues he’s always in the background, hardly ever on TV while Andy Burnham especially is never off it, and these days Richard Parker from the West Midlands, and Tracy Brabin from Leeds/West Yorkshire, are getting more headlines.

By Anonymous

You would think that central government support for critical infrastructure projects would be a given, but this only seems to apply if the projects serve London or the south east. There may be an argument to be had over exactly how best to provide a better transport link from Liverpool port to motorway network, but unfortunately central government isn’t interested in the issue, let alone any solution. Imagine if this was, say, Southampton…….I think it would be an altogether different response.

By Anonymous

Rail links must be improved to take traffic of the roads to switch island its a disaster trying to get out of maghull surley something can be done about this

By Anonymous

without investment in infrastructure how are we supposed to grow our faltering economy?

By Anonymous

Another cock up & short sighted decision to appease the NIMBY’s from Sefton Council, City Region & Local MPs.
All these guys are are more interested in protecting their fees ,allowances & £80k plus MP salary .
These are the same group who approved two massive industrial estates on the A5036
Mersey Reach & Atlantic Complexes.
One Q were did they think all the increased traffic would go from these developments.
National Highways posted traffic figures of 42,000 vehicles per day using the A5036 several years ago when the scheme was announced.
What are the figures today in 2024 ?
Manchester City Region must again be laughing at all our Local & National Politicans who again demonstrated they can’t for whatever reason seize a once in a lifetime offer for major infrastructure investment in Merseyside.
Yet these same Politicans will be slapping each other on the back after the budgetary announcement pulling the funding saying ” job well done”
God help us.

By Anonymous

The A5036 already exists between Switch Island & Peel Ports, in part called Church Road where it is residential. It would not cross Rimrose Valley. The proposed road would have been from Brooms Cross road to the Port of Liverpool.

By Church Road resident

With all the house building happening (infrastructure!) in Sefton: means more and more cars – hence more roads needed. How about Joining up the dots?

By Anonymous

The existing road can be used much more efficiently with green wave technology on the traffic lights to reduce stopping and starting and also refuce emissions

By Gareth

Thank God the rimrose valley country park (north liverpool) is saved, for now.
Many local people want containers to leave by rail.

By Ian concannon

It’s just over 4 miles from Seaforth Container Terminal to Switch Island and the M57/M58, where traffic is horrendous but no more horrendous than, say, trying to reach the M40 from Shepherds Bush and the A40. Instead of blaming Rachel Reeves we need to point the finger at voters in Liverpool and Sefton who have voted in inadequate politicians who should have lobbied to resolve this matter years ago, while equally the same people who have objected to this road need to realise that not all containers can be moved by rail and the bulk of them will have to go by road .

By Anonymous

Maybe they have earmarked the park for new builds

By Anonymous

The left and leftist attitudes have held Liverpool back for decades. The Container Port at Liverpool 2 in Seaforth generates wealth for the area and the UK. Rachel Reeves has just fallen true to form.

By John

Why does,nt peel ports pay for the road infrastructure it says it needs instead of the tax payer and the people of the area who have to suffer the pollution from it all.

By James

The Port of Liverpool Access Scheme was incorporated into the National Infrastructure Programme because Merseyside politicians including those in the Sefton Area, along with their MPs supported the road. Steve Rotherham was not in that decision making progress because he was elected Metro Mayor after the decision had been made.

By Road to the truth

The ports of Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway have all seen major investment in rail freight connections in recent years. Liverpool needs to get its act together or be left behind.

By Michael Halligan

@Nov 3rd, 3.13pm, Mayor Steve has been in office since 2017, and elected 3 times, just because he was not part of the original decision making process on this road does not mean he has no influence on it.
So does he support it or not, and if not does he have an alternative proposal to improve the way dock traffic can reach the motorways in North Liverpool by road from Seaforth Container Terminal.
If he shows no backing or enthusiasm for it then Rachel Reeves will never fund it.

By Anonymous

Well done to our new Labour government, I worked on the docks,peel ports are I’m afraid all about about money money money and to say the new road is nothing to do with them is a joke.

By Barry seddon

It’s a disgrace the way we residents of A5036 Church road have been walked over in the past 8 years . We have had bus services cut because of the congestion and I personally have to put up with HGVs parking across my drive whilst they wait for their slot at the docks.
You all should be ashamed of your selves

By Carole Craven

@ Barry Nov 4th, do you think Peel should not be making a profit, if so that`s not the way to run a business. Anyway Terminal 2 is part owned by MSC ie the biggest shipping line in the world, we have been waiting for the port to return to success for years and now that is happening we need the required infrastructure.

By Anonymous

Is PNW actually going to be following this up with Mayor Steve or Sefton Council, neither of whom seem to have had anything to say on the scrapping of the road since it was announced?

By Radio Silence

Despite all the Yimby protestations this was the right decision. Good to see them put back in their box. Leave the planning and decision making to the actual professionals.

By Yi Mby

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