11 July 2025
The future of Merseyrail: Public ownership or private rip off? Which future for Merseyrail? Merseyrail’s 25-year Concession is now nearing its end and the Combined Authority must decide whether it will extends the franchise, re-tender or, as with the rest of the national rail network, bring it into public ownership. Merseyrail’s operators – Transport UK and Serco - are currently arguing that they should be allowed to continue to operate the Concession in the Liverpool City Region. RMT does not believe this is in the best interests of the people of the region, or the British taxpayer.
Public investment in good services: Merseyrail’s operators like to take credit for its good performance. What they neglect to emphasise is that this is largely a consequence of public investment. 1. The new Class 777 rolling stock was bought and is owned by the Combined Authority using public investment. 2. The £80 million investment in the new Headbolt Lane Station was provided by the government’s Transforming Cities Fund.1 3. The £19.5 million projects to make 80% of the city region’s stations step-free accessible are being funded by the City Region through the government’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements and £9.5 million from the government’s Access for All funding.2 None of these investments were made by Merseyrail. In fact, far from investing in better services, Merseyrail has been an exercise in parasitic extraction of value since the concession began.
1
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-joins-forces-with-liverpool-to-transform-citysrail-network 2 https://www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/news/liverpool-city-region-on-track-to-have-mostaccessible-train-network-in-the-country-as-mayor-announces-19m-investment