£1.5m scheme to give Snow Hill a third entrance
PASSENGERS using Birmingham’s Snow Hill Station are to get a new entrance linking trains to the Metro service.
The scheme involves opening up another of the arches under the Victorian viaduct that carries trains and Metro trams into the city centre.
At the moment passengers going from the Metro stop at St Chads to trains in Snow Hill have to walk down steps and along the A4440 Queensway before turning into Livery Street and entering the station through its second entrance.
The new third entrance will instead give passengers a direct way into the station from the tram stop and vice versa.
An artist’s impression of the new eastern entrance was revealed by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM). It also announced the appointment of infrastructure specialist Barhale which has won the contract to build the £1.5 million project.
Cllr Roger Lawrence, WMCA portfolio holder for transport, said: “This new entrance to Snow Hill is one of several exciting projects in our long-term rail development programme which aims to transform train travel in the West Midlands over the coming years.
“Building the eastern entrance is a positive improvement that we can deliver in the short term, with the potential for more ambitious plans for the station being developed as part of the Snow Hill Growth Strategy.”
As part of the project, Barhale will construct the entrance beneath the existing brick arch viaduct which is enclosed by a reinforced concrete wall at the station’s Livery Street end, where a second entrance was built more than a decade ago. Work is set to start in summer 2019, and it will link into the existing Livery Street entrance to the station.
Paul Edwards, contracts manager at Barhale, added: “The main challenge for construction will be to break through the reinforced concrete wall at the Livery Street end of the station to form the new access. This is in the operational side of the station and so the works will take place outside of station opening hours with dust proof screens erected to keep out debris. This will allow ‘business as usual’ at Snow Hill station during the works.”
New ticketing, security and travel information will also be provided in the entrance as well as signs between the entrance and the St Chads Metro stop.
The entrance is expected to open in late 2019 with Metro and rail services unaffected during the construction period.