Start date set for Liverpool bus hub called 'idiotic' by critics

A start date for construction on a controversial city centre bus hub has been announced by Liverpool council .

Work on the hub, on Old Haymarket, will begin on June 24 and is expected to be completed by mid-December.

It will give buses somewhere to layover in the city centre in between routes.

It's part of a massive roadworks scheme across the city that includes changes to Lime Street, Tithebarn Street and Moorfields - but the plans have faced fierce opposition.

Cllr James Noakes, Liverpool council's cabinet member for highways, on the Churchill Way Flyover (Image: James Maloney/Liverpool Echo)

Neighbours and nearby businesses have campaigned fiercely against the hub, citing concerns about noise, traffic and its effect on trade.

But cabinet member for transport James Noakes said the hub was a 'vital piece of the puzzle' to allow improvements to the rest of the city's road network .

He said:“It’s function as a layover will remove thousands of unnecessary miles off our roads, reducing congestion in the city centre and cutting more than 2,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.

“As well as helping to make traffic flow more efficiently - alongside the other changes in the city centre connectivity programme - the real long term benefit is the improvement to our overall air quality for the city and our efforts in tackling the climate crisis.

“Liverpool city centre has undergone a huge transformation over the past 20 years but our transport network has hardly changed. The bus hub is key to making the radical changes necessary to ensure how we travel around the city centre works for the next 20 years - to the benefit of us all and the environment.

Last week Councillor Noakes had faced calls from members of the regeneration and sustainability select committee to put off a start date for construction on the hub.

Some members had said the decision to demolish the Churchill flyovers , which start near where the hub will be located, should lead to a rethink on how to use the area.

However council officers said the timeline for the delivery of the hub was tight because the money for it, some of which comes from the city region, is time limited.

Councillor Nick Small (Image: Liverpool Echo)

Earlier this week ward city centre Councillor Nick Small, who has campaigned against the plan, again called on the council to scrap the proposal, saying they should use a recently released council document, the spatial regeneratoin framework, as the starting point for a new vision for the area.

He said: "There’s an opportunity to do something really imaginative and transformative with this part of the City Centre.