Rotheram pushes for public ownership of Merseyrail
From July 2028, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority will take over the regional train network – provided Mayor Steve Rotheram can secure approval for his plans from council leaders.
Rotheram has put forward proposals to bring Merseyrail into public ownership once the current agreement with the operator ends in 2028.
Leaders from Liverpool, Halton St Helens, Knowsley, Sefton, and Wirral will vote on the matter at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meeting next week. All the council leaders are members of the Labour Party, like Rotheram. The exception is St Helens Council Leader Cllr George Woodward, who is a member of Reform UK.
The move to taking over the train network is not a new one. The combined authority first started exploring ownership options in March 2025. Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young have advised the combined authority on the process thus far.
Moving Merseyrail into public ownership will ensure that profits are reinvested into the infrastructure, as well as aid Rotheram in his push to create a single integrated travel network for the city region, in line with similar schemes in Greater Manchester and Greater London.
“People don’t obsess about whether they are getting on a bus, a train or a ferry – they just want to get where they’re going as quickly and cheaply as possible,” Rotheram said.
“My ambition is simple: one network, one vision, working in the interests of the 1.6m people who call our city region home.
“Taking back control of our trains will help us do exactly that. It will give us greater freedom to join up services, improve connections, reinvest more money back into the network and make decisions based on what works for passengers.”
If approval is secured for the plans, £5m will be released from Merseytravel reserves to do more preparation work for the move into public ownership. Read the combined authority report.
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has spent more than £500m on improving its transport infrastructure, including building stations at Maghull North and Headbolt Lane. Tap-and-go ticketing has been rolled out and the busses are on their way to becoming publicly controlled as well.
During his 2024 mayoral campaign, Rotheram pledged to build new stations at Woodchurch in Wirral, Carr Mill in St Helens, and Daresbury in Halton by 2030. He has also pushed for a new station in the Baltic Triangle part of Liverpool. This, however, has been considerably delayed.
The man can’t even plan in a new railway station, so why on earth would we let him play with the train set?
By Enfranchised
If we had a mayor with ambition merseyrail would have been extended to Parts of Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales. Rotheram is a complete non entity who has held our region back for a decade
By Brian
The right move entirely as it places the Mayor as the single point of responsibility and accountability for all the successes and failures of the local rail network. Slightly concerning though given the problems with the rollout of electric trains and Steve’s failure to build out the Baltic and no public update on the three other stations promised by 2030.
By Anonymous
Makes my blood boil every time I read about something Rotherham manages to put his grubby hands on. Baltic Station delayed, just like the rest of the network when he gets his way. The system has worked efficiently well over the last few decades with high punctuality. It’s not broken so leave it alone Rotherham.
By Stephen Hart
It is a good idea to have an integrated local transport network but will it actually work? Based on performance to date probably not. It also leaves the politicians no where to hide if it doesn’t work.
By Anonymous
Yet again, worth reminding everyone that the Baltic delay is a Railtrack issue, not Mayoral; the knee jerk every time this issue comes up is getting very boring. Completely agree re Cheshire, Lancashire etc. though – Ormskirk – Preston, Headbolt Lane -Wigan, Burscough Curves, Ellesmere Port- Helsby/Warrington, Bidston – Neston for starters.
By Anonymous
This isn’t a simple cycle lane. Leave it with the professionals Steve, can’t have you interfering on a whim.
By Anon
Having just moved to Merseyside from the transport hell that is Greater Manchester, I’ve been impressed with Merseyrail (although admittedly a very low bar for comparison purposes) – if it isn’t broke don’t fix it!
By Anonymous
Anonymous @ 12 49. It’s all very easy blaming others when trying to defend your own total ineptness, lack of business acumen, drive and ambition. Would Burnham be blaming others. He might but at least he would roll his sleeves up and get stuck in. His track record for Manchester speaks for itself.
By Stephen Hart
A lot of the devolution spending is terrifying and not in regard to Merseyrail but generally with viability gap funding for developers I do worry is the money getting to the right places and schemes? Can many people afford to buy or rent in the tower blocks that are being thrown up in Manchester and Liverpool? Is the viability gap really there…..
By Bob Dawson
Re anonymous 12.49, er Railtrack went bankrupt years ago, it’s Network Rail. Agree with the rest.
By Anonymous
Yes we are not meeting basic housing needs but finding public money to play Monopoly and dishing out loans to developers who continue to churn out high rent high returns schemes.
By Anonymous
This is one of the drawbacks of devolution, and why prior to the Tories pushing ahead with it and Andy surfing the wave, Labour was never keen and tended to focus more on “postcode lotteries” where you couldn’t rely on the people in charge to provide decent services. At least centralism meant consistency.
The Liverpool City Region lost the postcode lottery when an random constituency MP ended up in charge of it. The problem now is that he has no idea of his own incompetence (or importantly that of the people working for him) and now demands more things to bungle.
By Anonymous
If this happens then the surplus reinvested should go on bringing East Liverpool into the Merseyrail network by reopening the Outer Loop, 12 miles of railway from Aintree via West Derby, and onto Halewood, potentially serving Sefton, Liverpool, Knowsley, and Halton if extended slightly to Widnes.
In addition can we order 6-car train units instead of the current 4 cars, as the latter are too small a capacity especially on the Ormskirk, Chester, and Southport lines.
By Anonymous
Build the Baltic rail station first!
By Urs M.
The idea that Merseyrail makes a profit ignores the £144m rail support grant that the Department for Transport pays to Merseytravel exclusively to support Merseyrail.
Yes, Merseyrail makes a profit, and half goes to the current privately owned franchise operator, the other half to Merseytravel/ LCR. But it’s accounting fiction.
the ‘profit’ retained by this in-sourcing hopefully can be recycled into Merseytravel, but there is a risk that DfT doesn’t increase the rail subsidy as generously as it has since covid, when it was just £98m in 2020.
By Taxpayer
If this means we can start using e-tickets on their trains I’m all for it! Stupid archaic technophobes
By Anonymous
Why is has he not pledged to build a new station at Millhouse Lane Moreton, The land was purchased and the station promised over 25 years ago, instead Rotherham wants a station in the Woodchurch and the line is not even electrified, politics? I have no faith in the abilities of Rotherham and I dread when Wirrals bus services change over to his scheme in September.
By Alan Doyle
Does this mean Cheshire West Merseyrail users will subsidise LCR residents like with the Tunnels ? Or just recieve a service that is so poor footfall falls and then they will stop altogether ?
By Tony
Merseyrail routinely has yhe best performance rating and customer satisfaction of any UK railway operator. On what basis does Steve Rotheram, a career politician, think he can run it better than the professionals who are running it now?
By Anonymous
GMPT and Merseytravel should combine into one big transport authority.
By Flecko
Sorry to have to say this but this guy is such a dope. Everything LCC touch turns to dust. Or should I say rust.
By Eric
Alan Doyle July 11, a Merseyrail station at Millhouse Lane, Moreton is a no brainer. Easy to build, land purchased, hundreds of homes within 10 minute walking distance.
Merseyrail has plenty of examples whereby huge residential populations are near to rail tracks, both used and no longer used, which would benefit greatly from new stations and reinstated lines eg Childwall/Belle Vale, Gateacre, just to name 2.
Think of the revenue increases Merseyrail would clock up with all these new passengers, like at Maghull North.
By Anonymous
Makes absolute sense. An urban region’s public transport network should be publicly owned and fully integrated. People who believe the infrastructure should be run by private companies fail to remember that private companies only have one goal – and that’s to make maximum profit from minimum service – they don’t care about people getting around, only the profit they can make. Public infrastructure is important for people and people should come first, not profit. Those who also say that it didn’t work in past miss a couple of really important points; first of all, the main reason it failed in the pass was when governments who came to power that wanted to privatise infrastructure basically reduced funding to public infrastructure so they would fail and then give excuses to sell them off to private companies, and secondly, just because something failed in the past, doesn’t mean it has to in the future.
This is a great idea. But like roads – which most people agree should remain in public hands and not in private (unless you want to pay as you use – and that would cost a lot more than you pay now), we all understand that roads need to be funded well – just like rail.
By EOD