St Helens launches town centre movement strategy

Article date: July 30th 2024

·       Bus services to operate from purpose-built temporary hub on Chalon Way West in early 2025

·       Updates to taxi ranks, accessible parking locations and walking/driving routes published at www.sthelenstowncentre.co.uk

·       Public information drop-in events to take place throughout August in Church Square Shopping Centre

Plans to keep St Helens town centre on the move and open for business during the once-in-a-lifetime regeneration works have been announced by St Helens Borough Council and its partners.

The town centre 'interim movement strategy' has been devised by the Council, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and ECF, working with public transport operators. It will ensure that travel remains safe, easy and straightforward while the town centre undergoes its multi-million-pound transformation.

At the heart of the strategy is a purpose-built temporary bus hub located on Chalon Way West that will ensure passenger impacts are minimised. The temporary bus hub is due to open in early 2025, it will include a travel centre, seven new bus shelters and new pedestrian crossing points at both the Bridge Street and Market Street ends of Chalon Way West.

Construction work to create the temporary bus hub on Chalon Way West will begin this autumn. When it opens, St Helen's current bus station on Bickerstaffe Street will close to allow demolition to commence and make way for the construction of a new, extended modern Multi-Modal Transport Interchange, which will be delivered with financial support and in partnership with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

Chalon Way West was chosen to be the location for the bus hub because it offers easy access to shops, amenities, and employment areas in the town centre and represented the least disruptive option.

All bus services that currently depart from the existing bus station on Bickerstaffe Street will do so from the new temporary bus hub.

A full timetable and a guide to where passengers can catch their bus will be published and shared well in advance of the temporary bus hub opening early next year.

A dedicated, free-to-use, accessible car park has been opened on Parade Street, and additional blue badge parking bays have been added to Birchley Street car park, to replace blue badge parking spaces relocated to make way for the temporary bus hub.

Both parking locations have benefitted from upgrades - including dropped kerbs and tactile paving - to ensure they provide safe and DDA-compliant access into the town centre. These new parking spaces are in addition to 94 blue badge parking spaces that will continue to be available around the town centre at on-street locations and within other car parks.

Four new 24-hour taxi ranks have been created in the town centre, to ensure taxis remain convenient and close to areas of high footfall. The new ranks, agreed in consultation with licensed hackney carriage drivers, are located on Bridge Street, Church Street (two ranks on either side of the road) and Shaw Street, opposite the rail station. They replace the ranks on Hall Street and Chalon Way West.

Full details of these changes and planned diversions for walking and driving routes have been published at a dedicated website www.sthelenstowncentre.co.uk.

In addition, a series of public drop-in events will be held throughout August to provide people with the opportunity to view the plans in person and ask questions. They will be held in the former EE store in Church Square Shopping Centre at the following times:

·       Saturday 10 August:   10am - 3pm 

·       Tuesday 13 August:    12pm - 4pm

·       Saturday 17 August    10am - 3pm 

·       Thursday 22 August    4pm - 7pm

Councillor Richard McCauley Cabinet Member for Inclusive Growth & Regeneration said: "The regeneration programme is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure St Helens town centre is fit for the future, offering a well-connected and attractive place for people to live, work, visit and invest.

"Ensuring travel around the town centre remains safe, easy and straightforward is our highest priority. A construction project of this scale will inevitably include some temporary disruption, for which we apologise in advance, but we have a robust and well-thought-out strategy to keep the town centre on the move and open for business while this transformation takes place.  

"The journey to our new improved town centre starts now."

The new Multi-Modal Transport interchange is just one element of the first phase of the £100m regeneration of St Helens. The wider plans will transform 24-acres of the town centre with a new Market Hall, flanked by a mixed-use area set around a 120-bedroom globally branded hotel, 64 stunning new homes, and 11,000 sq ft of modern retail space, along with extensive high quality public spaces. 

St Helens Borough Council and ECF entered into a 20-year partnership focused on the transformation of St Helens Borough with the first key focus being the transformation of Earlestown and St Helens town centres.