Newcastle's Haymarket Metro station refit 'to stop more closures'

The escalators at Newcastle Haymarket station are being refitted

A refurbishment programme to refit escalators at a city centre station will prevent further disruption for at least 15 years, bosses say.

Newcastle's Haymarket station on the Tyne and Wear Metro network had to shut due to faults several times this year.

Passengers have had to travel to stations next to it on the network while repairs took place.

Metro operator Nexus apologised but said work to upgrade the station's three escalators would end in August.

The work will replace the components and steps on each escalator, with work on one already complete.

However, work on the remaining two escalators has been delayed while engineers wait for parts to become available.

The station has often been forced to close, or serve alighting passengers only, when a fault develops on the existing equipment.

Metro bosses have apologised for the disruption

"We are grateful to customers for their patience while these works are taking place", Nexus' head of renewals Sarah McManus said.

"We are sorry for any disruption this has caused when this busy city centre station has had to close, or become an exit only".

Nexus said it is investing £2m in the renewal of lifts and escalators across the Metro network.

Haymarket, which is one of its busiest stations with millions of passengers each year, is need of the remedial work, Ms McManus said.

She said: "These assets are heavily used by customers, especially at those stations in busy city centres.

"These projects are just a part of the major multimillion-pound investments that we have made to renew key parts of Metro's infrastructure over the last 10 years."

A series of planned closures at Haymarket will be in place from 21:30 BST until 06:00 BST the following day to allow for the upgrade works.

The upgrades come as Nexus started testing its new fleet of Stadler-built trains on the network this week.

The first class 555 was seen operating between South Gosforth and Monkseaton, but without passengers.