Wirral is in line for £161.54m of city region transport money from 2027 to 2032, including £55.04m for road and pavement repairs. Councillors meet on 18 November.
Wirral Council is in line for £161.54m from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to spend on transport between 2027 and 2032. The biggest single share, £55.04m, is for maintaining roads, pavements and bridges.
The council’s Policy and Resources Committee is asked on Wednesday 18 November to endorse the figures. They are set out in a committee report published this week. The money comes from Transport for the City Region, the government’s five-year transport settlement for city regions, which replaces the current City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement.
Where the money is meant to go
The report’s Table 1 gives Wirral’s indicative allocations:
| Project | Amount |
|---|---|
| Highways maintenance | £55.04m |
| Birkenhead Town Centre and Hind Street | £48m |
| Dock Branch Park North | £29m |
| Wirral core active travel | £22.5m |
| Birkenhead Central Gateway | £7m |
| Total | £161.54m |
The maintenance money is for the existing road network, its structures and other assets, “with a focus on road safety and climate resilience”, the report says. The active travel money is for walking and cycling routes. The two Birkenhead budgets back the town centre programme and the housing site at Hind Street, now called Borough Yard.
The Dock Branch park money moves elsewhere
The £29m for Dock Branch Park North will not be spent on it. That project would turn the disused railway cutting through Birkenhead into a linear park. The report says it cannot be finished before 2032, so the money could be clawed back if it stayed there.
The council proposes to move it like this:
- £6.72m to the Kings Square Link
- £5.06m to Dock Branch South
- £6.80m to United Utilities works at Borough Yard
- £10.42m still to be allocated, subject to a business case
We reported on the rising cost of the Borough Yard groundworks on 11 November. The council says Dock Branch North remains a priority.
The figures are not final
The amounts are indicative. Every project except highways maintenance still has to pass the Combined Authority’s business case checks, with outside assessors. Each one comes back to a council committee before it is built.
The report also warns that if costs rise beyond the final funding awards, the council would have to pay the difference.
Across the whole city region, the government announced £1.581bn of Transport for the City Region money in June 2025. The previous settlement was £710m. The Combined Authority’s indicative programme comes to £1.74bn, deliberately about 15% more than the money available, because some projects are expected to fall away.
The city region programme also includes new rail stations, including one at Woodchurch, and step-free access at every station in the city region, the report says. Those are Combined Authority projects, not part of Wirral’s own £161.54m.
What is happening on the roads this year
A separate update to the same meeting gives the progress on this year’s programme. By the end of October, 95% of the planned resurfacing work had been done, and the council says more than 80km of road will have been surfaced. The work done by the end of September included:
- 98 micro-surfacing schemes
- 98 thin micro-surfacing schemes on carriageways
- 41 footway surface treatments
- 30 HRA surfacing schemes
- 8 footway refurbishments
- 7 asphalt sealing schemes
On junctions, the update says Leasowe Road and Cross Lane in Wallasey is finished apart from removing the old street lights. Spital Crossroads is on site and waiting for resurfacing around the traffic signals. The Broadway roundabout in Bebington is out for public engagement and is due to be built this financial year (capital programme scheme updates, Appendix B).
What it means for you
- Road and pavement repairs have a five-year budget of £55.04m from 2027, if the figures hold.
- Walking and cycling routes get £22.5m. The report says there will be further engagement and consultation as each project progresses.
- Birkenhead town centre is where most of the rest goes. Decisions on individual schemes will come back to committees one at a time.
The Policy and Resources Committee meets at 6pm on Wednesday 18 November at Wallasey Town Hall. Most of the meeting is open to the public.
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