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HERITAGE IN EXTREMIS?

Downtown Liverpool reiterated their concerns about the way in which Liverpool's heritage and architectural conservation programme has been hijacked by factions of the heritage profession. Downtown's Director, Tony Siebenthaler stated,

"As a conservation-minded person I am aghast at the extent to which the conservation agenda has changed in the city. From saving valuable buildings it has morphed into heritage landscape creation. These people have no interest in progress, in rebirth, in organic change, in interpreting a contemporary relevance in our metropolitan landscape.

Anybody who doubts this just has to look at the situation in the Ropewalks area or, more importantly the waterfront, to see what is being played out…bizarre statements being made, with even the most modest of proposals being condemned as 'too tall', 'inappropriate' and 'ruining the skyline' and/or 'cityscape'.

It is a portent of things to come, not only within the proposed WHS area, but wider, within the hugely over extended so-called 'buffer zone' and even beyond that!

"Downtown Liverpool took some heavy, though misguided, criticism late last summer for raising our concerns over the negative impact a successful WHS bid could have, but they are already being borne out. This small, unrepresentative group, are already holding the city to ransom, raising the 'threat' to our WHS status every time a development proposal that does not strictly conform to their Victorian perspective is made.

We feel that assessing development proposals from such a narrow perspective is pointless and very dangerous. Lesser cities take much a more sophisticated approach now than the one Liverpool is developing and none of the other big cities would countenance such a barrier to their continuing growth. We have no doubts that this problem will just grow as the heritage faction becomes more and more powerful within the planning process."

"The sorely needed conservation focus the city should have has been misappropriated by a small group who have an ideologically extreme take, from which they are extrapolating the most inappropriate master-planning criteria. This will allow them to dictate the type of buildings deemed ‘suitable’. They will in effect have a veto on all development in the whole inner city. The saddest thing is that whilst this damaging exercise is being undertaken, lots of our valuable old buildings are still coming down round our ears".

He continued, "Make no mistake, the ideas being postulated as the template for future development of the city are about nothing less than the creation of a, bogus, ‘Heritage landscape; a facsimile of a 'pristine' 19th century port. It would ruin Liverpool, leaving the city devoid of contemporary relevance, a dead place, a moribund mausoleum, serving no purpose, even for heritage tourists...they like the real McCoy! I think most people in the city would utterly reject their stance. If it wasn't all so potentially damaging it would be amusing, as the landscape these people are trying to graft onto the city has never in fact existed, it is, in itself, a new construct - a departure! It is also slightly embarrassing, as the composition includes our own downtown conservation areas, but over 70% is just not of genuine international significance. As I have said, it is utterly pretentious, deluded, bogus!’

He concluded by saying "What English Heritage and their like are in fact saying is that Liverpool is a busted flush for which the future holds nothing, so best turn the whole city into a museum’. They are utterly wrong. Their ideas are extreme, they were unceremoniously bombed out of London due to their irrelevance to a city with genuine aspirations for the future, we should do the same in Liverpool. The consequences of the World Heritage bid must be urgently re-assessed as the strict obligations it entails are just too restrictive. The faction rubbing their hands at the prospect of the power WHS would give them should be sent packing to Canterbury or somewhere. The current WHS proposal should be allowed to quietly slip off the radar, in the same way that Julie Goodyear (our 'Cultural' ambassador who played barmaid Bet Lynch in Coronation St) and the Town Crier where...thank goodness!

The issues are straightforward and will have a profound effect on the type of future we have as a city. After thirty years of free-fall decline, do we celebrate and grasp the potential once again being generated in the city to build a vibrant future? Do we regain our true tradition of being a forward looking city? Or do we retreat still further into the deluded and self fulfilling miasma that sees no worth or value in trying to take the city forward but instead says that its good times lay exclusively in the past?

Does the 21st Century truly hold nothing for Liverpool?

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© 2004 Downtown Liverpool Organisation