Nexus has revealed draft plans for the complete rebuilding of North Shields station – a key part of the Metro: all change programme in the next few years.
The station will be completely modernised with a bright new entrance concourse and retail facilities and lifts to platforms for the first time.
The concourse will also feature a ticket barrier line, reducing fraud and improving security at one of Metro’s busiest suburban stations, with more than two million passengers a year. New ticket machines, taking notes, credit/debit cards and coins as well as bringing ‘smart card’ travel to Metro, will also be introduced, alongside all other stations.
Two striking new platform canopies will shelter passengers, made up of a series of curving wave forms on angled poles.
The plans, to go before North Tyneside Council for consideration this autumn, were drawn up by architect Sadler Brown LLP, behind the modernisation of both Haymarket and Sunderland, and consultant engineers Arup.
North Shields will be the first major suburban station to be modernised as part of Nexus’ £385 million Metro: all change programme over the next 11 years.
The line between North Shields and St James is among the first to be renewed with a series of major engineering projects planned over the coming year.
Ken Mackay, Nexus Director of Rail and Infrastructure, said: “North Shields is a major suburban station and town centre gateway, and through this scheme would see the same step-change in quality already welcomed by passengers using Sunderland and Haymarket.
“The plan is for a visually striking new gateway to the town centre, but also one which offers new standards in facilities like lifts, customer information, security and the general feel of the station.”
North Shields station re-opened as a Metro station in 1982 when the ‘loop’ of line from Haymarket via the Coast to St James was completed. There has been a station on the site since the 1840s.