The £5 billion project that will transform one of England’s greatest cities

A brand new underground rail line could be on the cards for Liverpool. Back in December, it was revealed that the city’s local authority, Liverpool City Region, wants to build a subterranean tunnel connecting Liverpool Central station to Liverpool Lime Street station in a scheme that would be ‘as transformational’ as the Liverpool One shopping and leisure complex which launched in 2008. 

The tunnel isn’t the only part of the plan. Central Liverpool, as the proposals are currently being called, will cover a distance of 86 acres around the existing Liverpool Central Station and will feature new shops, new public spaces and new homes, too. 

The plans were first revealed by Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotherham five months ago He told the Liverpool Echo at the time: ‘This is a scheme about innovation, transformation, jobs, skills, it is about social value. It is about the way that whole area will function. It is a bit like Kings Cross and St Pancras in London, where they redesigned the whole area, that is what we want to do with the centre of Liverpool, we want to redesign it.’

The local authority is seeking funding from the government for half the cost of the scheme and says that the rest would come from other sources. Given that the overall cost of the scheme is expected to reach £5bn, it’s looking for £2.5bn from the government. 

Rotherham added: ‘We would connect Lime Street and Central better than it currently is. That would probably mean subterranean, like with those London stations, so people could move easily from one to another.

‘You would take some of the stopping services from Lime Street, say to Manchester, and you would direct them to a revamped Liverpool Central Station, with more capacity. Then you could run the fast trains from Lime Street to Manchester, with hopefully a new parkway stop in the Liverpool City Region, we haven't decided where that will be yet.’

ICYMI: Sell-out music festival No Art will return to the Liverpool docks this summer. 

Plus: Plans have been revealed for the tallest skyscraper in Liverpool.

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