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Why oppose World Heritage Status?

Seeing worth in Liverpool proceeding with its present WHS application smacks of the desperation that arose during the painful 80's and early 90's, when a tag, any tag was searched for.

To be what many thought our ONLY chance of developing some economy. The feeling that wealth and commerce would never come back was all pervading, but happily shown to be inaccurate.

Water Street, Liverpool 2004
Restoration and re-birth in downtown's commercial heart:
the original WHS proposal

When the possibility of Liverpool making a successful bid for WHS was first broached, it was rightly celebrated as a way of highlighting Liverpool's fantastic role in shaping 19th C commerce, though, it must be noted that the original proposal was solely for the area from the Pierhead to Castle Street.

It must also be remembered, without wishing to deny conservation's vital role to be played in continued growth and evolution of the city, that the heritage communities basic traditions and ideologies run counter to the processes that affect dynamic commercial cities. There is no appetite to encourage these processes of change, there are not the skills honed in shaping cities at the strategic and sweeping levels being countenanced in Liverpool. Their passions are not borne of wanting maximum growth in the economy and celebrating material changes these bring about, quite the reverse, their main priority is to develop the infrastructure so as to preserve historical understanding and maximise that interpretive landscape, rather than build commerce.

Another observation has to be that there has hardly been a rush of historically important cities that still retain healthy economies to dedicate vast tracts of their centres WHS! Surely they are as proud of their history and as protective of their old buildings and landscapes as we?

The incongruous Liverpool cityscape

Liverpool's landscape has changed and continues to change. There is no sacred skyline or planned template to be venerated, set in aspic. Should downtown Liverpool really be preserved in its 1970’s glory for all time? (what’s that? Take a look! A somewhat tired, 1970’s city) …there IS a spectacular skyline to be added to, made greater, to make new statements. The city has, though, suffered tremendous damage to it's metropolitan infrastructure and should be seeking ways to build up again, not constructing a facsimile of a 19C town!

The RSA Building, Old Hall Street, Liverpool

Of all British cities (with the possible exception of Glasgow) it was Liverpool that most had that international feel. Its landscape was unashamedly urban, with its commercial architecture, massive warehouses, silos, tenements and later high rise flats...as a landscape quite awe inspiring. Huge passenger liners, merchant ships and docks gave an everyday familiarity with cyclopean scale.The utter de-urbanisation of Liverpool over the last 20 years is possibly the greatest and most criminal tragedy to be inflicted on the city.

If we take, for example, the council towers. Undoubdtedly poor places to live, but that was down to construction, letting policy and bad management, as part of the urban structure of the city they gave us an unbeatable metropolitan composition. On aspects of aesthetics of design they where much more superior to the miserable low-rise brick courts and terraces so loved by the heritage community,and of course as units for habitation then they where infinitely better.

What let the flats down of course, apart from the issues above, where the ideologies on town planning that where an essential part of the wider programme that saw high rise flats developed. Vast swathes of 'common land' and the Corbusier inspired ideologies of 'cities in the park' and 'kill the street' that went with them. Set in schemes that undermined the intricate grain that enables city districts to prosper and provide amenity to their residents they failed utterly ...having said that, so did most of the low rise from the mis-begotten anti-urban era! Do we remember the Radcliffe Estate?

The consequences and obligations of complying with WHS would necessarily force a change of emphasis, from economic growth and development (within the realm of quality design) into that of preserving a historic landscape for interpretive needs...the need to develop the 'appropriate' landscape would have to come first every time.

Demanding that everything be set in aspic has as its point of departure some VERY strange assumptions! For a start, it must mean that in Liverpool, every site, street and neighbourhood is perfect, cannot be bettered so must not be altered (except, of course, for those inappropriate new buildings that don’t conform! replacing them with ones 'in keeping'). The same must be for the skyline. The city should be approached as if two dimensional, they say, with views and sightlines being of primarary importance. Depth of field, gradual change, new additions and function shall in future play no part in its development needs, and normal pressures should be subsumed by restrictive codes.
Old is better than new...ALWAYS!

There are two scenarios for WHS we see:

1. Liverpool fully complies and we limit development to that which will/can conform to representing a stylised and bogus 'representative' landscape.

2. Accept developments that would possibly change and adapt the landscape, but would give us the appropriate growth as a commercial city.To do this the city would suffer the indignity of having to give up, or be stripped of WHS.

The biggest problem is the absurdity of determining the city's potential solely through subjective design parameters. There are no universal truths in aesthetic urban landscaping, it is all about desire, particular tastes and preferences.

English Heritage and the wider preservation communities have a particular World view. Landscapes shaped by the Passenger lift and steel skeleton technology is frowned upon. They state as much in the WHS bid document...they have an IDEOLOGICAL view of what is 'right'

'Appropriate' contemporary style!
Imagine a whole landscape of this stuff?

They have run into serious credibility problems in many areas, particularly in London, one city I think we would have to admit has more to preserve of international significance.

The scale of Liverpool's proposal is unprecedented and has come about as a result of the instinctive attitude that 'this must be good as it celebrates Liverpool' and so accepted before being handed over and left to heritage experts to 'get on with it' and come up with the proposals.

This was the fundamental mistake and is the source of our objections, because as we describe above, the temptation has been to expand this into the heritage communities 'wish-list' as opposed to taking a sensible view of balancing conservation and economic development. Downtown is the city's beating heart, it's engine, incubator and exploratory. change and momentum in a city's fortunes can be huge and swift. The culture of the city is fluid and responsive, so the environment in which it pays out must be also.

Liverpool's narrative has ebbed and flowed as wildly as the mighty River Mersey's tide itself. The city is now coming out of a vicious long term recession. To set a template that only pays homage to the last upsurge is to deny letting this next one find its optimum strength. Cities live and grow through change and innovation. If we subscribe to the scenario for conservation as currently being proposed and envisaged in the WHS management Plan it will suck the vitality from the city, will surely kill it.

Put quite simply, it's just NOT what Liverpool is about! Heritage 'Master-planning' is as alien to Liverpool as skyscraper development is to Florence!

World Heritage Status is niaively seen as a regeneration tool, and this is the key. Liverpool is a commercial city. Heritage is insufficient of itself to provide the level and diversity of growth that Liverpool needs. The heritage agenda was developed at a time when no other options where seen to be on the horizon...and like most policy it is only now being picked up, years after its actual sell-by date as an idea was up!

The claims for 'Heritage led regeneration' as it is being sold to Liverpool are also disingenuous. There are no examples where heritage has become the driver and succeeded on the scale, and in the central manner, in which it is being sold to Liverpool. Heritage, history and conservation have a vital role to play in the city's commercial revival...but to lead it? Thankfully Liverpool does have other options, IF we drop the current, overblown scheme that is.

The old Chinese proverb that states 'be careful for what you wish as you may get it' has never been more apt if we apply it to Liverpool today. For thirty years of decline the desperation in the city for others to remember that Liverpool is a great city, and was greater still long ago, but has the potential to be great again, if only people would listen, was such that the plea became a mantra.

How ironic that just as the city is turning things around, one of the strongest of those cries, that of, 'we WERE great..look, we have the brilliant architecture to prove it!' turns into an agenda to preserve the physical manifestation of 'this greatness' in perpetuity, to show the world, but in the process denies the chance of the city ever being great again!

© 2004 Downtown Liverpool Organisation