Anfield Road Closure Edges Closer To Permanent, Despite Years Of Local Pushback
Council officers have recommended approval of a plan to permanently close part of Anfield Road to traffic, moving Liverpool FC a significant step closer to locking in an arrangement that was originally meant to be temporary. The stretch between Alroy Road and Skerries Road has been off limits to vehicles since 2021, back when the Anfield Road Stand expansion was under construction. Four years on, with the stand long finished, the road remains pedestrian and cycle only, and officers now want that made permanent.
A community that has grown more opposed, not less
For residents who live along that stretch, this recommendation lands as confirmation of something they’ve suspected for a while, that the closure was never really going back to how it was. Consultation figures back up their scepticism rather than undercut it. Two-thirds of respondents opposed the closure in a September 2024 survey, and by March 2025 that figure had climbed to almost three-quarters. That is not a community warming to the idea over time, it is one growing more entrenched against it, and officers will have to explain why the numbers moved in the wrong direction if they want this to stick.
A promise residents say was broken
Much of that hardening traces back to a promise that residents say was never honoured, that the replacement road layout would reopen to vehicles on days without matches or events. According to at least one resident who addressed the committee directly, that simply never happened in practice, and the sense of broken assurances runs right through the objections being raised now. It is the kind of grievance that outlasts the original argument, because it stops being about traffic management and starts being about whether anyone can trust what the club and council tell them next time.
The safety case officers are leaning on
Council officers, for their part, are building their case on safety and matchday logistics rather than sentiment. Principal planning officer Felicity Collins told the committee that officers had judged the changes not detrimental to residents and recommended approval on that basis. Merseyside Police also backed the permanent closure, framing it as a way to better protect the stadium from vehicle-related threats, while noting that reopening the road to cars would eat into supporter space on the busiest days, a real consideration given how attendances have grown since the expansion went in.
Even the committee isn’t fully comfortable
Even so, the process itself came in for criticism from within the planning committee. Chair Tom Cardwell didn’t hold back, describing what had been presented to members as feeling like a foregone conclusion, and suggesting something had broken down badly in how the matter had been handled before reaching them. That is a notable line from the person chairing the committee that is supposed to weigh this fairly, and it suggests the unease extends well beyond the residents objecting from outside the room.
None of this is decided yet, but a recommendation from officers rarely gets overturned at the final hurdle. For residents who’ve spent four years watching a temporary measure edge toward permanence, this is the moment that argument either gets won or lost for good, and the frustration voiced inside that committee room suggests it won’t be settled quietly whichever way the final vote goes.