The area was first closed off in September last year and will have reached almost 18 months by the new deadline
Out-of-service escalators at one of Liverpool’s busiest transport hubs are to be closed off until well into the New Year at the earliest. Since September last year, passengers at Moorfields station have been unable to use one of the exits after damage was reported on site.
After months of waiting, work finally got underway to begin repairs on long closed off escalators at the city centre station in March. When terms were initially awarded last year, it had been expected work would take around a month to complete.
The maintenance of the escalators is the responsibility of Liverpool Council, leading to the entrance of the station. The station and its surrounding area is managed in parts by the local authority, Network Rail, Merseytravel and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
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Now a spokesperson for the city council has confirmed the escalators will be closed until at least February 2025 – taking the delays to almost 18 months. KONE Ltd – an escalator and lift company – was awarded an initial contract last autumn worth £37,202 on the basis that a number of components had failed, leaving one escalator out of service.
It said: “The escalator units require a major intervention to clean, service, replace and overhaul to satisfy health and safety requirements and make operational.” The site has remained boarded up ever since and fencing has advised rail users to use alternative options.
Issues emerged regarding the canopy above the escalators which encountered a leak, with that being the first stage of works to get going. New parts were then ordered after a detailed examination of the escalators identified two “major elements” needed replacing, rather than a routine repair as first thought.
This pushed work back further, with a lead time of around 12 weeks to complete and hopes it would be complete by this Autumn. Now however, the ECHO has learned workers will not return to the site until early January with parts under manufacture and a completion date earmarked for February – 17 months after the gates were first locked.
Cllr Alan Gibbons, Orrell Park ward member, raised the closure of the escalator back in September 2023 and was critical of the continuing delays. He said: “The situation is screamingly insane, to spend 18 months to get an escalator repaired just seems beyond everyone’s imagination in this city.
“You get on the train in well kept suburbs like Maghull or my ward and then you get off at Moorfields and to have a decrepit main gateway into the city centre is a disgrace.” Last month, a Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) transport committee was told a pair of escalators remain out of service at Moorfields for passengers using the Wirral line at the city centre station.
Network Rail has pledged to invest £12.5m to replace all 14 escalators across the central Merseyrail network over the next three years. Phil James, route managing director, has revealed it is likely the steps will not actually be fully functional until next May amid some users describing the lack of escalator as “Mount Moorfields.”
The director said Network Rail had flown in some parts from a US firm to expedite work and the company had become “inundated” as a result of the planned work and unexpected failures happening at once.
