The road has been closed for weeks, causing congestion in the city centre
Part of the road has now been closed for over two weeks(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A key city centre road remains closed due to an “unsafe structure”. On June 30, access to Old Hall Street from the junction of Leeds Street and The Strand was blocked off to cars and buses.
Emergency services were called to the area after receiving a report from the building managers of Beetham Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the city, about a structure called Connections – Face of Liverpool.
Berkeley Shaw, the building manager for Beetham Tower, said at the time that the structure was within its estate and leaning at a “concerning angle”.
The monument consists of a brown metal wall with diagonal lines and a circle on one side, with low concrete walls partially surrounding it. It is next to the Radisson Blu hotel and faces both Old Hall Street and the junction of Leeds Street and The Strand.
On the day it closed, Merseyside Police confirmed to the ECHO that officers were at the scene to help manage traffic after receiving a call from the fire service about an “unsafe structure”.
Peter Whalley, the head of block management at Berkeley Shaw, said on July 1 that adjustments would be made to make the monument “structurally sound” as fencing was put up around it.
Two weeks on, the road remains closed which is starting to infuriate drivers and public transport users.
Old Hall Street allows people driving from Leeds Street and The Strand to quickly access the city’s business district, which includes the offices of the Liverpool ECHO and Hill Dickinson, the sponsors of Everton’s new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, in St Paul’s Square, as well as the passport office at 101 Old Hall Street.
The issue is further complicated by the maze of one-way systems that surround Old Hall Street. The road goes down to a single lane at Union Street, where the Cotton Exchange is located. You can’t get onto the road either from Bixteth Street either as it leads on to St Paul’s Square, which is pedestrianised.
Currently drivers can only access Old Hall Street by going via Chapel Street, then on to Rumford Place and Union Street. The 54A and the 136 buses have also had to change their route. A message on Merseytravel’s website says: “Old Hall Street will be closed at the Leeds Street junction from Monday 30 June 2025 until further notice.”
One man on X/Twitter last week said: “(Old Hall Street is) still closed, with no work going on at all to rectify the problem. It is now July 9!”
This week, another man added: “So Old Hall Street in Liverpool city centre has now been closed for two weeks!”
A woman added: “These bus drivers need to clarify on the diversion. Some will stop at Moorfields and some won’t, which is an inconvenience and makes people late for work as we have to use an alternative way of getting there.”
A local taxi driver has also heavily criticised the structure, telling the ECHO that it is causing “loads of congestion and making everyone’s lives more difficult than it needs to be”.
Connections – Face of Liverpool is leaning at a “concerning angle”(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The ECHO has reached out to Berkley Shaw for a response. A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said responsibility for fixing the structure and reopening the road lies with the firm, not the council.
At the start of the month, Peter Whalley said: “We have had contractors on site this morning who have assessed the structure. They will be welding steel supports to it today to make it structurally sound, which will enable a surveyor to remove the panelling and investigate the underlying causes behind its movement.
“For the public’s safety, we’ll be installing Heras fencing around the site and are applying this morning to Liverpool City Council for a pavement closure in the immediate vicinity whilst work continues.
“At the appropriate point, the emergency services will be asked to review our remedial work and, if they’re happy with it, an application can be made to re-open Old Hall Street.
“Once we have received the surveyor’s full report, we can then identify the best means of a permanent repair and attach timescales to this.
“It’s a great piece of sculpture with a famous old quote about Liverpool and the public will want to see it back at its best.”
Connections – Face of Liverpool was built in 2006 to mark Liverpool’s status as a city of trade, facing both the waterfront and the city’s business district. The monument contains a quote from the writer Michael O’Mahoney in 1931. It says “Liverpool – Threshold to the ends of the Earth.” You can read the full story behind the structure here.