{"id":1181916,"date":"2026-09-02T05:49:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1181916\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T05:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:49:23","slug":"the-areas-where-1-3m-new-homes-could-be-built-near-uk-train-stations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1181916\/","title":{"rendered":"The areas where 1.3m new homes could be built near UK train stations"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Street railway station is in the heart of Liverpool<\/a> \u2013 just a few minutes\u2019 walk from the famous docks in one direction, and The Beatles Museum in another.<\/p>\n

More than 3.1 million passengers passed through its gates in 2024-25. But the area around it remains underdeveloped as a place for people to live.<\/p>\n

Directly opposite the station entrance, a prime corner plot of land has been vacant since 2010 \u2013 despite efforts to build a block of luxury apartments.<\/p>\n

Crown House, a 1950s office building next door to James Street station, has also been empty for more than 20 years, despite numerous attempts to convert it into flats.<\/p>\n

The station is a prime example of an inner-city area that experts believe Andy Burnham can target to deliver on his pledge to build 1.5 million homes this Parliament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new report from the Centre for Cities, a think-tank close to Burnham, suggests at least 1.2 million homes alone could be built near train stations in Britain\u2019s largest cities.<\/p>\n

\u2018Significant dent in housing shortage\u2019<\/p>\n

Anthony Breach, the think-tank\u2019s director of policy and research, said \u201cgoing big on homes around stations will make a significant dent in the housing shortage\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is also \u201cone of the most effective ways to boost city economies. In a low growth economy like Britain, it is one of the most glaringly obvious problems to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britain has generally been poor at building homes around public transport networks \u2013 with dense housing next to stations far more common in countries such as France and Japan, the think-tank says.<\/p>\n

If Liverpool had built houses around Merseyrail stations at the same rate as their French and Japanese peers, there would be a further 142,000 more homes.<\/p>\n

The area adjacent to James Street station could accommodate at least 3,000 more homes, the study found. The same number of new houses could be built in at least eight of the Metrolink stations in Manchester city centre and at Salford\u2019s Central rail station.<\/p>\n

In London alone, the think-tank estimates half a million \u201cmissing\u201d homes around London stations, with a further 183,000 in Glasgow and 134,000 in Manchester.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In some cities, such as Sheffield and Liverpool, the density of homes is actually lower near stations than further away from them.<\/p>\n

Network Rail \u2018too slow to hand over land\u2019<\/p>\n

Burnham has announced national planning rule changes forcing councils to give a default \u201cyes\u201d <\/a>to new homes proposed within 800 metres of train, tram and underground stations, even if they are on green belt land.<\/p>\n

But Centre for Cities says the government\u2019s ambitions are likely to get stuck in red tape and delay without further reform.<\/p>\n

The group wants mayors to have more power to take control of land around stations from Network Rail. The government body is estimated to own at least 52,000 hectares of land across the country.<\/p>\n

In Liverpool, the mayoral authority signed a memorandum of understanding to take control of stations in 2023 \u2013 but three years later the first stations are still being transferred.<\/p>\n

Experts say this is partly because authorities are required to demonstrate to regulators that they can run stations safely.<\/p>\n

One solution from the Centre for Cities is a \u201cfast track\u201d process so that mayors can enter \u201cpartnerships\u201d with Network Rail more quickly.<\/p>\n

Mayors: \u2018Give us greater control\u2019<\/p>\n

The think-tank said Burnham\u2019s Government could also make more use of Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs), which give areas greater powers to assemble land through compulsory purchase and approve planning applications directly.<\/p>\n

The i Paper reported earlier this week how Burnham sees Stockport<\/a> \u2013 where an MDC has led major regeneration efforts \u2013 as the blueprint for the revival of Britain\u2019s towns.<\/p>\n

Breach said the Government must \u201cbe clear-eyed that without speedy planning reforms and rail devolution \u2013 good intentions will get stuck in the swamp of delay, red tape and inter-agency bureaucracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Steve Rotherham, Labour\u2019s mayor of Liverpool City Region and a close ally of the Prime Minister, said while progress has been made, there is \u201cmuch more we could be doing around our rail network\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving us greater control over stations and the land around them would open up more sites for development and help us build the homes our residents need, where the transport links already exist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Street railway station is in the heart of Liverpool \u2013 just a few minutes\u2019 walk from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1181917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[8916,748,393,4884,6333,179,2465,1836,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-1181916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-andy-burnham","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-housing","tag-liverpool","tag-manchester","tag-network-rail","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117199881153237107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1181917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}