Liverpool City Council is to introduce a ‘Football Match Parking Zone’ around Everton FC’s new £750m waterfront stadium when it opens to fans in August 2025. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool City Council is introducing a number of new measures to reduce congestion and improve journey times to Everton FC’s new £750m waterfront stadium.
Everton will kick off the 2024/25 football season at its new 52,888-capacity arena in Bramley-Moore Dock in Liverpool Waters in August 2025. They will leave their iconic Goodison Park home in Walton at the end of the current season.
Now the city council wants to put a plan in place to minimise congestion and make it as easy as possible for fans to get to and from the stadium on matchdays by creating a ‘Football Match Parking Zone’.
A report to the council’s cabinet on Tuesday, October 8m, is recommending a raft of new measures similar to what is in place around Goodison Park and Anfield on matchdays.
Focus of the proposed parking zone covers the area within a 30-minute walk of Everton Stadium, which will encompass the surrounding Ten Streets district and into the city centre. Recommendations, which have been subject to a public consultation, include:
- New resident parking areas.
- New taxi ranks.
- New match day bus stands.
- New parking restrictions.
- New hours of operation for existing parking zones for the Great Homer Street area.
- New hours of operation for existing parking zones for the Ten Streets and Love Lane areas.
- New industrial parking zone south of Boundary Street.
- New industrial parking zone north of Boundary Street.
These proposals have been designed to complement the planned modernisation of parking across the city centre. If approved by Cabinet, the Council’s Highways and Transportation team will begin the process of installing new signage towards the end of the year.
Residents and surrounding businesses will also be invited to apply for the relevant parking permits. The Everton Stadium will be subject to a number of test events at the start of next year.
Already selected as a venue for the UEFA European Championships in 2028 the new venue, which is serviced by the city’s historic Dock Road, will also be capable of hosting major non-footballing events.
Liverpool City Council has invested more than £20m in the highways infrastructure around Bramley-Moore Dock, including a permanent segregated cycle lane running from the city centre up to Liverpool’s northern border at Bootle in Sefton.
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is also working with Merseyrail, Network Rail and Everton FC on the development of a new crowd management zone and an additional entrance at Sandhills station.
Cllr Dan Barrington, Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and Connectivity, said: “Everton Stadium is going to be transformational especially for the surrounding Ten Streets district and the wider Kirkdale community.
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“As well as the economic benefit, the vast volume of people the stadium will attract – and how they arrive and depart – needs to be carefully managed.
“Bramley-Moore Dock is also a unique location given its very close proximity to the city centre and the fact the surrounding transport infrastructure is well developed. There’s more to be done but all the partners are talking to make those improvements.”