Stand up for St Helens – or step aside

13 October 2013

Stand up for St Helens – or step aside

That's the message from St Helens Green Party to the council leadership following the Liverpool City Region transport authority's lukewarm response to proposals for two long-promised St Helens rail schemes.

Merseytravel's proposals for a station at Carr Mill and for reopening the St Helens Central-Junction link line were rated 31st and 35th out of 36 road and rail projects considered for priority funding.

It now seems that a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the St Helens rail network, and to attract the investment and jobs that go with it, could be lost – and the Green Party is laying the blame squarely with the council's leadership.

St Helens Green Party transport spokesman, Andrew Brownlow, explains:

"We were dismayed when we saw how low these St Helens schemes had been rated, but then the standard of the original submissions was alarmingly poor.

"St Helens deserves a lot better, and the Green Party is offering to help with an improved business plan, yet when we asked the council executive and Merseytravel to support our more imaginative proposals, all we received from the St Helens side was a curt response from council leader Barrie Grunewald. This just isn't good enough.

"The original submission uses flawed data from out of date research, lacks ambition and fails to make the strategic connection between the two St Helens schemes.

"Our approach, Connect St Helens, is radically different, visualising the Carr Mill and link line projects as a strategic whole.

"Carr Mill becomes a major urban hub station with radial links to Liverpool, Southport, Wigan, Blackpool, all stops to the Lakes, Manchester Victoria, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Airport, Warrington, Crewe and Chester.

"The station would sit prominently at the junction of the East Lancs Road and the A571, with a large interchange fed by buses from the whole of the north of the borough. A large park and ride facility would take regional and national commuter traffic from the A580, A570, A571 and A58, freeing up space on the M6 and M62.

"The Connect St Helens project's purpose would be to offer hourly, low carbon, direct connections to all of the above hub stations. Via those connections, it would provide one-service-change access to most of the rest of the country and internationally. All trains to the above destinations would call at, or start from, Carr Mill, and also stop at St Helens Central.

"The council leader's response fails to recognise that Merseytravel's proposals, implicitly supported by St Helens Council, were inadequate to the point where they either represent a disturbing failure of the above bodies' imagination – or they were intentionally designed to fail.

"Our proposal is, in contrast, designed to radically transform St Helens' connectivity to the region, to the country and internationally. If implemented, St Helens would be recast as a far more attractive place in which to live and to set up business. Employment opportunities would increase through access to regional jobs and growing local employment. House prices would undoubtedly rise, and the council's own funds would be boosted.

"We call, once more, on St Helens Council and Merseytravel to support this initiative by funding a business case for the combined scheme. It is not good enough to issue a glib response and do nothing. Townspeople and council members who support these proposals should be clear just where the blockage lies. We urge you to lobby both the Council Leader and Merseytravel for a positive response."

Note to editors

• In Merseytravel's version, submitted recently for independent assessment, the above projects were not connected. They implicitly visualised Link Line services as starting at St Helens Central. They proposed one train per hour only, to Manchester Victoria in a first hour and to Warrington Bank Quay in a second. Their plan was supported by a ridership survey produced for an outdated 2006 report which predated the current electrification program. Focusing only on people wishing to travel from St Helens Central to Manchester or Warrington, it recorded too small a demand to justify rebuilding the Link Line.
• Carr Mill, meanwhile, was presented as a local station serving only the line between Liverpool and Wigan. It was imagined as having a tiny fifty vehicle car park hidden away behind Woodlands Road, and one single bus stop.
• Cllr Barrie Grunewald's response to St Helens Green Party:
  "Both of these proposals have been identified by the Council for some time, but to date it has not been possible to secure the necessary funding for the new station at Carr Mill or to make the business case for re-opening the St.Helens Central to Junction link. Please be assured that these schemes will be kept under review by both the Council and Merseytravel. In the circumstances I can see little benefit from a meeting taking place to consider this matter further."
• Though Carr Mill is mentioned in St Helens Council's core strategy document, the link line is not.

 

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