Major routes in the north and the south of the city will see improvements to road surfacing, footways repairs and drainage improvement. Tony McDonough reports

A £9m road maintenance programme begins in Liverpool on Monday taking the value of on-site highway projects in the city past £100m for the first time.

Major routes in the north and the south of the city will see improvements to road surfacing, footways repairs and drainage improvement. The works are part of Liverpool City Council’s ongoing Better Roads programme.

Edge Lane, in Old Swan, which connects the city centre to the M62, will see improvement works beginning on Monday and continuing to May 2021. It follows on the from the £10m investment to Edge Lane to accommodate the new Liverpool Shopping Park, which opened in 2018.

The works will be carried out by Liverpool based contractor Huyton Asphalt who are also beginning a £1.5m upgrade to Green Lane, in Tuebrook. This scheme, running from Bolan Street to Santon Ave, will complete in April 2021 and involves drainage repairs, footway improvements and road surfacing.

As part of this new £9m programme, which includes a £3m city wide investment to improve footpaths, Liverpool City Council has also scheduled upgrades to:

• Walton Lane – from Cherry Lane to Everton Valley – beginning Monday, July 20. This is a £3.9m scheme delivered by Liverpool company Kings Construction. Ending April 2021.
• Kingsley Road, Toxteth – from Upper Parliament Street to Princes Ave – beginning Monday, July 20. This a £1.3m scheme also delivered by Kings Construction. Ending March 2021.
• Beaconsfield Road, Woolton – from Menlove Avenue to Church Road – beginning August. This is a £325,000 scheme to be delivered by Liverpool company Dowhigh. Ending February 2021.

As these schemes begin, all of which will involve lane closures but no full road closures, a number of other key highways projects are about to end.

A £3m upgrade to Upper Parliament Street and £4m investment in Princes Ave/Road, which includes a new 1km cycle lane, new event space and tree planting, are both to complete by the first week of August.

The Princes Avenue scheme is being delivered by contractor MNCN Plc whilst Kings Construction have delivered the Upper Parliament Street scheme.

In Liverpool city centre the £3.5m redesign of Victoria Street ends next week. This upgrade includes the relocation of bus stops as part of the wider £47m Liverpool City Centre Connectivity (LCCC) programme.

A key element of the LCCC programme is the £22m radical overhaul of The Strand which began two weeks ago. This scheme also includes a new cycle lane connecting the south of the city to the north, new tree planting and new public realm.

A number of junctions cutting across theThe Strand to the Pier Head will be removed to improve traffic flow. And with wider pavements the scheme has been designed to also improve road safety for pedestrians after four fatalities in the past two years. The first phase will complete in spring 2021.

Another element of the LCCC scheme, which is part funded by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority through the Local Growth Fund, is a new expanded coach park on Riverside Drive which is just a five-minute drive south from the city centre. This £1.5m project, which will treble capacity, will end in August.

A new northern link road to connect traffic to the forthcoming Isle of Man Ferry terminal, which forms phase 2 of part of the LCCC programme, is also on schedule to finish in this September. This £7m project has been part funded by the Department of Transport.

Contractors GRAHAM construction have so far delivered all the elements of the LCCC programme, including the successful removal of the Churchill Way Flyovers.

To the north of the city centre, two other major schemes are coming to their final phase. The £22m upgrade of the A565 (Great Howard Street) and the city’s historic “dock road” (Waterloo/Regent Road), which has included the creation of a new dual carriageway on the A565 as well as a new cycle lane on the dock road, is set to complete in September.

Joe Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool, said: “To have £100m of highways investment on site for the first time in the city’s history is a landmark moment – and an amazing achievement considering its being delivered during a pandemic lockdown.

“This level of investment speaks volumes for how much the city’s roads network needed to be improved and updated. It also underlines our ambition to grow Liverpool’s economy from the north docks to our connections to the motorway system, by creating better traffic flow, better cycle provision and a more pedestrian-friendly city.”