Headbolt Lane is a new railway station in the Towerhill/Northwood area of

Kirkby Kirkby ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. The town, historically in Lancashire, has a size of is north of Huyton and north-east of Liverpool. The population in 2016 was 41,495 making it the largest ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

, North West England. The opening of a station in the area has been an objective of the

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

since 1972 and detailed plans have been under development since at least 2013. Planning permission was granted in December 2021, with construction due to commence in January 2022. It is anticipated that the station will open in Spring 2023. Once opened, it is anticipated that the station would replace as the interchange between the

Merseyrail Merseyrail is a Urban rail in the United Kingdom, commuter rail network serving the Liverpool City Region and adjacent areas of Cheshire and Lancashire. Merseyrail operates 66 railway stations across two lines – the Northern Line (Merseyrail ...

Northern Line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, tw ...

and unelectrified Kirkby-Wigan line, currently operated by

Northern Trains Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT), after the previous operator Arriva Rail N ...

History

Although the station was initially planned to act as a new Merseyrail terminus, the Electrification Task force declared the Kirkby to Salford Crescent via Wigan line to be a Tier 1 priority for electrification in 2015 which, if followed through, might enable the extension of Merseyrail services beyond Headbolt Lane. Plans were devised by Merseytravel and Lancashire County Council to extend Merseyrail to serve . In 2017, the two authorities commissioned an initial £5 million feasibility study into establishing the new rail link and an intermediate station at Headbolt Lane. Initial estimates suggested that it would cost around £300 million and would take up to a decade to deliver. In August 2019,

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) is the combined authority of the Liverpool City Region. The Liverpool City Region includes the City of Liverpool local authority area plus the Metropolitan Boroughs of Knowsley, St Helens, ...

announced that part of an agreed £172m funding package for the region would be used to fund the construction of the new station. The Combined Authority approved that the first £3.3 million of funding for the project in July 2020, before signing off a further £66 million in March 2021. The station is designed to be built with three fully accessible platforms with accommodation for future Merseyrail extension to Skelmersdale. A 300 space car park and bus interchange is a part of the plan. The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority announced in July 2021 that after a trial of a

battery electric multiple unit A battery electric multiple unit (BEMU), battery electric railcar or accumulator railcar is an electrically driven multiple unit or railcar whose energy is derived from rechargeable batteries driving the traction motors. Prime advantages of these ...

(BEMU) version of the new Class 777, it will serve the new station on opening. This will not require the line extension to Headbolt Lane to be electrified. The Department for Transport announced in July 2022 that it was rejecting the Strategic Outline Business Case for an extension to Skelmersdale. The DfT instead suggested that better bus links with the Kirkby–Wigan rail line would be a cheaper way of improving connectivity for Skelmersdale.

References

Proposed railway stations in Merseyside Railway stations scheduled to open in 2023 {{Merseyside-railstation-stub