Tawd Valley launches £150m Skelmersdale masterplan

This is great news. They’re right about the Merseyrail extension, too.

The new railway station including a spur off the Kirkby to Wigan line – rejected by the last government – had a ballpark figure of £300 million, so hard to see how it fits into an “achievable” £150 million masterplan for the whole town centre.
If it’s been downgraded to a new station on the existing line, some distance from the town centre, that’s still £20-30 million and ignores that Upholland station already serves a similar function.
Would be better for WLDC and LCC to look at something practical like a fast, frequent express bus down the M58 to connect with Merseyrail at Maghull North.

More feasible to upgrade Upholland station and improve bus connections, active travel, park & ride etc.

The station should be cheaper than previous estimates as the Merseyrail 777 trains are battery operated, so no expensive line electrification is needed. It can also be just one track with the town being a branch line.

So many people from Liverpool uprooted and left for Skem but now finding the journey back to see friends and family a bit of an inconvenience unless you’ve got a car, the sooner a rail link is built from Kirkby then all the better.

I applaud their ambition but would suggest that the priorities should be fixing the terrible state of stations in central Liverpool and reopening lines in the east and west of Liverpool that are public transport deserts

The proposed Baltic Station on an existing line in Liverpool is forecast at £100m, so what cost a new spur off the Rainford / Wigan line? In the meantime you can currently travel between Skem Concourse & Headbolt Lane station via Stagecoach’s 319 bus service, every 30 mins throughout the day & hourly into late evening Mon – Sat, hourly Sundays, Journey takes 21 minutes to then pick up a Merseyrail service to Liverpool, a further 20 minute ride away.

Please make sure the rail station is built first before they run out of money. Skem went down hill the second after they closed the original rail station. A new station would make a huge difference.

I’ve lived here over 54 years. In that time, promises have been made and broken constantly. I really do hope these come to fruition but experience tells me this is yet another fairytale taunting the residents of this forgotten town. Whomever thought of this plan, good luck but please don’t ignore our feelings in this. We see other towns close by getting 2nd railway stations whilst we can’t even get one. We’ve been promised a new swimming pool and that is now off the table. Please remember we live here and love our town. If you haven’t got the money to carry out this project please don’t mention the’planned proposals’ until approved and work has the funding waiting in the bank to pay for it.

The Metro line to. Skem can be built in stages. Headbolt Lane was the first stage, next Rainford, and last Skem, much cheaper without the need for third rail and all flat land on the level.

It’s likely the homes will be built, but little else before the money runs out. Skelmersdale residents have heard this all before – promises made and little delivered. Other than a few slabs of concrete leading to the high street stores, there’s not much else to show for it. Now, they’re looking to close the swimming baths, supposedly due to lack of funds, while at the same time claiming to offer ‘leisure opportunities.’ We all know where our money is really going, and it’s not to the people born in Skelmersdale. So forgive my frustration if I don’t believe those homes are meant for the former children of this town, or that the Unicorn station will materialise.

The only thing that will get built will be the 425 houses on Glenburn. The other development are add to make sure the houses are built, but will never happen. No rail station, no swimming pool, just more houses and no more infrastructure.

Been promised for 40 + years, still waiting!!!

It will never happen, there’s been a campaign for a train station for years and all we get is a bus to Headbolt Station

A minimum of 5 million already spent by councils on the network rail GRIP process coming up with a best option costing somewhere between 300 million and 700 milion. Let’s be realistic! It’s not going to happen and offering up a budget of 150 million for this so called ‘master-plan’ makes the whole thing a joke and to call it an exciting new chapter for Skelmersdale is insulting to anyone who has watched this going on for years! To suggest, one commenter suggests that the town had been going downhill since the original station closed actually suggests that it was going downhill from 1956 – modern Skelmersdale ‘new town’ was only started in the early 1960s was that ‘master-plan’ simply part of a downhill trajectory? Or was the closure of infrastructure and industry over the decades more important. Skelmersdale was promised a hospital, it never happened; it has closed high schools at the town centre (Glenburn and Westbank) and at Tanhouse (St Richards) the ‘replacements’ (Our Lady’s and Lathom High) are barely in the town itself. Primary schools have also closed (Fairlie).it is now, very recently proposed to close the swimming pool. Take a real look at Skem and the master-plan you might come up with would encourage investment in workplaces that would encourage people to live and work in the town, would provide facilities that might draw people to come to skem (Cinema, pubs and restaurants), what about even a municipal golf course oh sorry I forgot we had one of those closed as well after somebody had a genius plan to turn it into a rubbish dump – try and get a good explanation for that one from the ambitious council leader or anybody else involved in these super duper plans for the town. Utter nonsense at all levels!

The main difficulty here is that WLDC keeps on ignoring the Concourse Shopping Centre, which while not being the shiny thing it once was with national retailers, functions very well with a mix of Iceland/Heron/Home Bargains/Boots/Superdrug/Argos and genuine local businesses including small traders in the Market Hall. Also, an actual independent local cinema.
Someone really has a downer on the Conny, and picking off some of the bigger names to go elsewhere really isn’t helping Skem.

Not perfect but great to see ambition & finally a rail connection too! Hopefully Lancashire & Liverpool can get behind this & WLBC can deliver

About time developers remembered where we are.

Yeah sure OK, we believe ya…never happen and it it does will ve run down within 10 years, invest in things for the youth and more police, make what we have feel safer…can’t polish a turd..

Yeah, yeah. Maybe my kids kids will see this. Said they were doing this 10 years ago. They also said they were improving the golf course they sold off as a landfill.. then never improved the golf course, or made it into a lovely country park. Wonder who’s pocket all that money went into. Shambles or a council. Don’t even cut our own grass. Pay Preston to do it.. you keep building homes everywhere, and knocking g down the only swimming pool we have x

All sounds wonderful but not the houses on yewdale taking away breath taking views spoiling nature definitely against this part of the plan

WLBC cannot afford to replace the existing leisure centre in Skem and are suggesting closing this and the one at Ormskirk to save money. I am therefore sceptical where the £150m is going to appear from. Pipe dreams.

How much did it cost to produce this fairytale? Better spent keeping Nye Bevan pool open.

I’m very happy with the new masterplan for our town improvement well done

Only this month we were told that there isn’t enough money for the replacement of the swimming baths in Skelmersdale (planned in January this year). If they can’t afford that, where is the money for this?

We asked to keep our swimming pool open until we got a new one built and we got a master plan, perhaps this master plan should have been held over until all the funding was in place

Where would the new residents kids go to school. Where would they get a doctor’s appointment. There aren’t enough facilities for the growing town already. Fix the right things in the town not just make our overcrowded facilities and services have to cope with even more .

“The largest focusses on a site in Glenburn, which has been outlined as suitable for a mixture of 425 market and affordable homes” I’ve never understood this expression ‘affordable homes’. Does that mean the rest are unaffordable? The entire estate should be ‘for rent’ and a stepping stone for young local couples to rent whilst they save a deposit to buy a home (if they want to). No private housing.

Affordable homes is a government designation that means the homes are offered at a set price below market value. You can read more about it on the government’s website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-homes-fact-sheet-9-what-is-affordable-housing/fact-sheet-9-what-is-affordable-housing

October 25, 2024 at 8:17 am

By Julia Hatmaker

can remember at least 3 “master plans” involving a train station, nothing come to fruition. they just enjoy floating the idea of boosting impoverished towns, giving people hope, and then leaving us with nothing. won’t hold my breath waiting for this

Build more homes, it’s hard enough to get to see a doctor or dentist plus schools are full

It’s great .
So let’s get on with it.

About time maybe pensioners passes will be extended to trains

Been spouting the same old for decades now. Nothing will get done

How about new doctors, new dentists and new schools first!!!!!!

This is wonderful and has been required for a long time,however I hope there are plans for more Doctors ànd a hospital.

How much has this report has cost the rate payers of West Lancs, as it will be another white elephant. If they want to build new homes lets also build better infrastructures, with all these extra families we need more schools, better GP services, more dentists, the NHS walk in centre needs bringing up to modern day needs and longer opening hours. As for a new shopping centre they can’t even fill the one we’ve got, and even that’s being taken over by charity shops. They should be concentrating on making good what we already have, not starting to build more.

Definitely need new places and a train station life is so boring here I wish I never moved

It’s a pipe dream. The only people benefitting from this plan are the consultants. However we do need the rail link
.

I simply do not believe it.

The population of Skelmersdale is growing, with the continued building of new property, what is lacking is infrastructure. We’ve been promised a rail link and had it taken away multiple times, the sports centre was supposed to be replaced when it was demolished and all that happened was more houses. Now we’re going to have the same issue with the swimming pool.
Saying you’re going to do something here is completely different to actually doing it, so keep your promises and build Skelmersdale into the new town it was meant to be.

If it was near London there’d be a station already open in Skem

Hear we go again Promises promises I think they are living in a dream world

We’ve been made these promises time and time again, What about the rest of the infra structure, buses, doctors dentists, and shops and most of all the biggest promise from the seventies A HOSPITAL

Been hearing about a rail station for years…..would be interested in seeing proposed route and site of a station, as the best routes are being built on. Regarding more homes,great but considering the council are shutting the swimming pool, and the sports centre went years ago there isn’t much in the line of leisure facilities, oh yes one of the proposed sites is another area that had an athletics track and all weather football pitch ,thousands went down the toilet on that.
Something does need doing to the ‘town centre ‘ the Concourse is half empty and never had the shops it needed for years. The people of Skelmersdale have been let down for years.

This will not happen and every knows it but they say it will but never will

This is great news. I can’t wait for it to come to fruition.
In the meantime I’m just going to watch the pink elephants flying past the window.
Never going to happen.

There have been many leisure facilities allowed to decline in Skelmersdale. We once had an indoor sports centre, which was torn down to make way for houses. We also had a golf course, including a golf driving range, which has been neglected and now overgrown, making it unusable. Both the sports centre and golf course were very popular, with young and old. Now they want to destroy the towns swimming pool, which also includes a gym. Gradually, all the town’s leisure facilities have been taken away. Glenburn and West Bank schools, which were demolished, had every sports and leisure facility, which could have been used by the public.

They have been promising a railway station since 2006, it’s never going to happen, is it ? The railway station was removed in 1956, at a time when Skelmersdale relied on public transport, as not many people couldn’t afford to run a car in those days. Now many people have cars and prefer to use them, as there is no security on public transport, also, trains are unreliable.

Another pipe dream

And where are the additional schools and doctor surgeries in this plan. All of which, are all over subscribed already

When are you or any of your fellow councillors give a decision about disability access to the Car Park on Fairstead. You can not use a handrail to get a wheelchair up a Flight of stairs.
By the way the Council is WLBC not WLDC. Changed name years ago

A railway station is essential to the towns growth and a modern leisure centre is a must for the health of its residents already living here.

Who are the end users for the 28,000 sqft commercial space?

I have have it once I’ve it a million times. A lot of old air.

The houses will be built and everything else, will not. As for the train station, the plans state they don’t want it to offer much in terms of parking as they don’t want to encourage car use. Sorry, but if I live on the outskirts of town, especially in the north, I wouldn’t want to be messing around with walking or cycling in the rubbish weather and would much sooner end up just taking the car to my final destination.

My solution was to build a parkway type station off Pimbo, on the existing line. Extend upholland station if needed and give it plenty of parking as it’ll attract people to get off the motorway and use public transport to get to Liverpool or Wigan, Manchester etc which will ultimately take even more cars off the road. As for those who want to use public transport, the council already subsidise a bus from Skelmersdale to Kirkby so why not reroute that to the new Pimbo Parkway instead?

The plans also include getting rid of some roundabouts and installing traffic lights. The council seem committed to destroying one of the best features of Skem, the lack of traffic, and the ability to walk or cycle from one side of town to another without having to walk alongside, or across, a road.