Merseyrail submits plans to increase capacity for Everton FC fans waiting for trains at Sandhills amid concerns the station is struggling to cope with matchday demand. Tony McDonough reports
Merseyrail has submitted plans to Liverpool City Council to increase passenger capacity at Sandhills station on matchdays.
Since Everton FC relocated to its new Hill Dickinson Stadium at Liverpool Waters in 2025 there has been a significant increase in fans arriving and departing the area via the nearby Sandhills Merseyrail station.
A new footbridge was installed by contractor Morgan Sindall to cope with the thousands of fans each matchday as well as a crowd corralling area. However, the volume of passengers using the station after matches has put a strain on the station, prompting safer concerns.
Now Merseyrail is seeking consent from the council to upgrade the facilities further and ease matchday congestion.
Proposals include the extension of the existing corralling area for destination specific queue routes and providing additional passenger welfare facilities, permanent toilet provision and an area for future potential catering services.
There willl also be additional stair access to the existing ramp connection to the platform footbridge and a of a new bus stop / interchange astride the boundary at Dunes Way.
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In a submission to the council, Owen Ellis Architects said on behalf of Merseyrail: “Interventions to date have served to reduce the impact of additional demand and has increased the existing station access capacity to an extent.
“It has, however, become evident that the station’s continued ability to cope with the demand seen on match/event days requires further improvements to be able to efficiently and effectively handle the volume of pedestrian traffic.”
However, the prospect of significant extra train services out of Sandhills, or a much bigger station, are less likely in the foreseeable future. In an interview with LBN in 2025, city region Mayor Steve Rotheram said a new station at Sandhills would cost around £100m.
He claimed the Department for Transport would likely reject the project with current footfall in the area not high enough to justify the outlay.
Mr Rotheram also said the current infrastructure on the network offers limited scope for adding more frequent services.
He added: “We can squeeze a little bit more out of the infrastructure that we’ve got, but it’s an analogue signalling service, so we couldn’t do all of the lines.
“We just haven’t got the digital infrastructure and that would cost £200m or something ridiculous that Network Rail have said for us to convert over and cause huge disruption for an awful long time.”