£108m planned to improve Liverpool City Region transport
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram will be asking combined authority members next week to approve a programme of works that will see £32.7m dedicated to a new bus station in St Helens and £75.4m for bus decarbonisation and route improvements.
The multi-modal transport hub at St Helens is to be delivered in partnership with St Helens Council, which is chipping in £9m for the cause. The end result will see a more than £40m interchange built up on the current bus station site.
The interchange will boast 11 bays – two more than the current offering – as well as layover capacity for coaches, helping ease congestion around the Corporation Street area. It is part of St Helens Council and ECF’s £100m regeneration of the town and is expected to be operational in September 2026.
Targeting the 10A, 53, and 86 bus routes, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority will add dozens of zero-emission electric buses to the network, reinstate bus lanes in Liverpool, and add additional depots along those routes.
Rotheram spoke about why he was focussed on buses.
“Hundreds of thousands of people in our area rely on buses to get about every day – more than 80% of all public transport journeys in the region are taken by bus,” he said. “But we need to put the public back at the heart of public transport.
“Last year, I took control of our buses in the biggest shake-up to the region’s transport in decades and the change will be transformational,” Rotheram continued. “For the first time in almost 40 years, we will have control over fares, tickets, and routes and will be able to ensure that services are run in the best interests of passengers – not shareholders.
“We need to make our buses a greener, dependable, and more affordable option. This investment is laying the groundwork for those improvements as franchised services begin to hit the roads in 2026”
The money for the work comes from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, a £710m pot secured from government in 2022.