The Port of Liverpool has the potential to handle significantly more freight by rail, helping to support the growth of the port while reducing pressure on the road network around the city and across the wider Liverpool City Region.
Greengauge 21 has undertaken a new independent study exploring how this could be achieved in the face of the capacity constraints on today’s national rail network – particularly around Manchester, where there is currently no clear solution for accommodating additional freight services.
Today, an estimated 2% of containerised freight at the Port of Liverpool is transported by rail. This is significantly below the proportion handled by rail at many of the UK’s other major ports.
The report argues that a radically different approach to freight routing is needed, making better use of existing rail infrastructure and identifying routes that can bypass some of the most constrained parts of the national network.
A new route for Liverpool’s rail freight
The study identifies the potential for targeted investment in the existing rail network to create new freight routes from Liverpool via Blackburn, providing two important connections:
- access to the Settle & Carlisle line, providing a route for freight between Liverpool and Scotland that avoids the heavily used West Coast Main Line; and
- access to the Calder Valley line, creating a connection between Liverpool and key rail freight and logistics terminals across Yorkshire, the Humber and the North East.
The report estimates that these improvements could potentially be delivered within a 5–10 year period, subject to further investigation and the investment required.
This approach would provide an alternative to routing additional freight through the already-constrained Manchester rail network. The study finds that neither the Transpennine Route Upgrade nor current proposals for Northern Powerhouse Rail provide a solution to the specific challenge of accommodating significantly more rail freight through Manchester.
A complementary inland logistics hub
The study also considers a separate but potentially complementary option: the development of an inland port and logistics hub close to where the M57 and M58 motorways meet and terminate, connected to the port by a revived rail link.
This could make use of emerging automated technology increasingly being deployed at ports internationally, allowing short trainloads of containers to be moved efficiently between the docks and a nearby trans-shipment hub.
As well as providing additional capacity for freight, such an approach could improve the efficiency of port operations and create greater flexibility in how containers are moved to and from the Port of Liverpool.
Wider benefits
The proposed approach could have benefits beyond freight. In particular, creating additional capacity through the routes identified in the report could also support the potential expansion of Merseyrail passenger services to Preston, an ambition associated with the Metro Mayor’s Merseyrail for All programme.
The study therefore highlights the opportunity to consider freight and passenger connectivity together, making better use of the existing rail network while targeting investment where it can address specific capacity constraints.
Next steps
The independent report was commissioned by Rimrose Valley Friends, which campaigned against National Highways’ proposed Port of Liverpool Access Road between 2017 and 2024 and has subsequently committed to pursuing alternative solutions.
The report’s findings point to the need for further work involving the key organisations with an interest in the future of the Port of Liverpool and its transport connections – including the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Sefton Council, Peel Ports, Network Rail, the rail freight industry and the Department for Transport.
Peel Ports’ involvement will be particularly important in understanding the current and potential future flows of freight through the port, and in identifying which rail routes have the greatest potential.
The study was funded by the Foundation for Integrated Transport, with key inputs from Jonathan Roberts Consulting, which identified the docks within the port generating the largest number of HGV movements.