North Wales Metro: Welsh Government provides over £2m for Deeside railway station schemes

The Welsh Government is providing over £2m for two Deeside railway station schemes.

More than £9m is being made available to Transport for Wales to take forward work on the North Wales Metro scheme.

Transport and North Wales Minister Ken Skates announced today that programmes set to benefit include over £1m to improve rail journey times between Wrexham and Liverpool.

£1.5m is provided towards the new integrated station at Shotton, and £670,000 towards the development of Deeside Parkway.

Deeside Parkway station is a key component of the North Wales Metro development and will make major contribution to urban connectivity, giving access to more employment opportunities as well as reducing car usage.

This new station would enable employees to get to the Deeside Industrial Park by train and at the same time provide easy access from the network of dual carriageways to park and ride facilities for rail services to Birkenhead, Liverpool, Wrexham and beyond.

£900,000 is also allocated towards a study of the North Wales Coast mainline, with a view to improve journey times on certain services.

Just over £1m is available for the Snowdonia Transport Strategy which aims to encourage park and ride, bus and active travel in the national park.

Funding is also available to improve sustainable transport and active travel in the town centres of Wrexham and Rhyl, while investment will be made in a project to enhance access within Bangor for rail, bus and active travel.

This builds on last week’s announcement of £25m for the Wrexham Gateway project to support the development of the railway station and multi-modal transport hub.

Minister for Transport and North Wales Ken Skates said: “Last week we published our National Transport Strategy, Llwybr Newydd, where we made a bold pledge to increase the number of people using public transport, walking and cycling.

“Today’s funding for Transport for Wales backs this pledge. It includes looking at improving our rail services, making it easier to move around our town centres by bus, on foot or cycling, and making it easier for people to visit areas such as Snowdonia without a car.

“The work to be carried out by TfW over the next year will contribute towards our target for 45% of journeys to be by sustainable means by 2045.”