UK: Network Rail has obtained listed building consent for plans to ‘open-up access’ to Newcastle Central station, improve road traffic flows, increase passenger capacity and change the taxi pick-up points and short-stay parking.
The initial works are expected to cost £3·46m, with £3·31m coming from the North East Local Enterprise Partnership and £150 000 from Newcastle City Council. Work on site is expected begin this year.
The station was used by 8·7 million passengers in 2017-18, and numbers are predicted to grow by 30% by 2023.
A new entrance in the west would take passengers from Central Parkway to a new concourse, and there would be an entrance at the front on Neville Street where a car rental business is currently located.
‘Although some demolition will be required, opening it up will expose original features that have been hidden away for years and will take the building back to the way it looked in 1850’, said Councillor Ged Bell, Cabinet Member for Employment & Culture, on June 23.
