With Everton FC’s new £750m docklands stadium set to welcome its first spectators Liverpool City Council will introduce a Football Match Parking Zone in the area. Tony McDonough reports
A Football Match Parking Zone is being introduced around Everton FC’s new £750m stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.
Liverpool City Council said the raft of new parking measures are to be implemented surrounding the 52,888 seater arena, similar to what is already in place around Goodison Park and Anfield.
On Monday, February 17, Everton’s under-18s side will play a friendly fixture in front of 10,000 spectators – kick-off 7pm. In late March or early April 25,000 spectators will be able to watch the under-21s in a friendly.
Another test event will be organised for the summer ahead of the kick-off of the 2025/26 football season in August. Everton will play its final game at its current home Goodison Park at the end of this season.
More than 4,000 residents and 3,000 businesses are now being invited to apply for the relevant parking permits ahead of the zone going live under an Experimental Traffic Road Order (ETRO) to coincide with the first test game.
This ETRO will run for up to 18 months and during that period will then be reviewed by the council Highways and Transportation team.
Residents will be able to apply for a permit for each vehicle registered at their address, plus one visitor permit, for which there will be no fee. Businesses will be charged an annual fee of £50 per vehicle, up to a maximum of 10.
The focus of the proposed parking zone covers the area within a 30-minute walk of Everton Stadium, which is serviced by the Dock Road, and will encompass the surrounding Ten Streets district, into the city centre and up to Great Homer Street.
The new parking zone requirements, which were subject to a public consultation in late 2022, includes:
- 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
The overall aim of the new Parking Zone is to reduce congestion, improve air quality and safety to and from the stadium. The proposals have also been designed to complement the planned modernisation of parking across the city centre.
The Council’s Highways and Transportation team has already begun the process of installing new signage ahead of Everton’s first test match at the waterfront stadium, in Liverpool Waters.
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.
READ MORE: Developers submit plans for 78 Wirral Waters homes
Cllr Dan Barrington, Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and Connectivity, said: “The North Docks area has never had to cope with such large numbers of people in such concentrated time periods.
“Fortunately the city has the experience and knowledge thanks to Goodison Park and Anfield. By creating this new match day parking zone, we’ll be looking to adopt and incorporate those controls which so effectively move tens of thousands on a weekly basis.”