‘A Nazi death camp:’ inside the feud over Sandhills

Good afternoon. No matter where you are in Merseyside and how much local news you consume, you’ve probably already heard about councillors Richard Kemp and Pat Moloney comparing the plans for Sandhill station to a Nazi concentration camp.

But while the offence provoked is understandable, are Labour using these remarks to distract from the shortcomings for their plans for Sandhill station to accommodate the extra footfall? Laurence spoke to Kemp, Liverpool Lib Dem leader Carl Cashman, Labour party councillor Nick Small and more to get to the bottom of this week’s most controversial political story.

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New council homes. Liverpool City Region has received a £380m share of the government’s £10bn building budget to deliver 3,100 new “genuinely affordable homes.” There are 14,500 households on the waiting list for homes in Liverpool, according to local government data – some 50% above the national average. Around 60% of the homes delivered through these partnerships are expected to be for social rent. Mayor Steve Rotheram said that he wants Liverpool to be at the “forefront of the biggest revival in council housebuilding in a generation.” Fortunately for him… 

The mayor gains new powers. Steve Rotheram’s “bezzie mate” in No.10 will be given devolved mayors control over large-scale planning decisions. Mayors will be able to grant up-front permission for large building projects without a developer applying, taking the power out of councils’ hands. 

Rotheram has held strategic planning powers since the creation of his position, including the ability to take control over applications of regional significance, but the affected councils kept a veto over their use. Under the current plans, constituent councils – some of which, like St Helens, have now fallen out of Labour hands – could lose that veto. A dose of that elusive, but much promised, Burnhamism? 

Everton bid to expand concerts at Hill Dickinson. In a planning application submitted last week, Everton Stadium Development Ltd sought permission to double the number of “non-sporting events at full capacity within the stadium” it can stage in a year, up from four to eight. The change would also stop rugby and other sports counting towards the limit. Since opening in February 2025 the ground has hosted a Rugby League Ashes Test, Magic Weekend and two international fixtures — but no concerts. 

‘A Nazi death camp:’ inside the feud over Sandhills

Standing at Sandhills railway station on a rainy weekday morning, I try to think what it reminds me of. An abandoned water slide, with its sloping, wavy roof? An industrial livestock pen, with its hastily assembled “fan zone” for Everton fans come match day? Honestly, even squinting hard as I can, it really just looks like any other drab railway station in Britain.

One comparison that does not leap immediately to mind is Auschwitz. Say what you like about Steve Rotheram and his combined authority, but they have not, as this story goes to press, death-marched millions into Kirkdale’s transport link and exterminated them in a monstrous quest for racial purity. 

Yet on Tuesday, details of how Liverpool council planned to adapt Sandhills station to accommodate additional footfall to and from Everton’s new stadium led two Lib Dem councillors — former lord mayor Richard Kemp and councillor Pat Moloney — to compare the arrangements to Nazi concentration camps. 

First, former Lord Mayor of Liverpool Richard Kemp likened the new queuing zone to “the greeting area at Auschwitz” – the notorious death camp where around a million victims of the Nazi Holocaust lost their lives between 1941 and 1945, the vast majority of them Jews. (It’s been some years since I visited Auschwitz, but I don’t recall an historic “greeting area” for the camp’s inhabitants.)

Then, councillor Pat Moloney — perhaps less familiar with specific sites — called the proposals for Sandhills’ new zones “like something out of a horrific death camp in Nazi Germany.”

Now: context. Sandhills is the nearest railway station to Everton’s new-ish 52,000-capacity Hill Dickinson Stadium. Despite the Bramley-Moore Dock location having been endorsed in 2018, no amendments to increase its capacity were made until a frankly crap “fan zone” in February last year. The stadium is a good half-hour walk from the city centre — a convenient, if not pleasant, stroll for some, but not so for disabled or elderly supporters — and is not served by a bus. This means that, during Everton’s home match days, potentially tens of thousands of fans pass through a railway station not designed with these numbers in mind.

Whatever inspired these wild equivalencies, the censures of Moloney and Kemp’s comments from Labour were swift. And they came from the very top: Rotheram himself took to X to post open letters to Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey calling on him to condemn first Moloney’s, then Kemp’s, remarks, before demanding the councillors’ suspensions.

Leaders of Liverpool’s Jewish community, understandably perplexed and offended by Moloney and Kemp’s remarks, also joined the fray. Jeremy Wolfson, chair of the Merseyside Jewish Representative Council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that Kemp’s comparison was “absolutely appalling” while David Coleman, administrator of the Allerton synagogue, used the word “despicable.” Both joined the calls for the two councillors to apologise.

Moloney said he would consider doing so if he had offended anyone. Remarkably, however, Kemp refused.

“Perhaps I could have used better words,” the former Lord Mayor tells me over the phone, “but my deliberate intention was to shock people at the planning committee.”