The Road to hell is ...
Liverpool’s
World Heritage Bid, which will see planning control over vast swathes of the
inner core of the city given to ‘Heritage Guardians’ has been accepted.
Already we learn that a staggering 1 in 6 buildings in the downtown
WHS site have been 'x-listed' and earmarked as potential for demolition link.
For no other reason it seems than they are deemed ‘unsuitable’ in
the tastes and opinion of a select few. Often commercially succesful, structurally
sound, quite often actually quite good looking, but ‘not appropriate’.
How much money, time and resources that could go to rescuing old buildings
at genuine risk will go to this fantasia instead?
As we have said on this site many times, imposing the restrictions needed to comply with management of the ’site’, will do untold damage in the eyes of us who see Liverpool as a metropolis of International standing, commercial by nature and forward looking in our instinct and tradition. We love Liverpool, we love its history - but not at any cost.
We only have to look at the esteemed company that we will be keeping…Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Giza…not a New York, Hong Kong or Sydney in sight!
In order to maintain our status the city will have to forgo all sorts of interesting developments and activities in order to preserve it’s ‘characteristic’ of a 19th century port at the height of Britain’s maritime, Imperial power…and here we were thinking that Liverpool hadn’t been that since…well, er….the 19th Century! If you can, then please get hold of a copy of the management plan and read it.
It is a fundamental variance. ALL of our work is about trying to change perceptions and encourage a more dynamic downtown in order to provide the infrastructure for a city that aspires to regain commercial power and cultural richness. WHS is most profoundly NOT about that. A Liverpool whose future is as a heritage tourist centre (even a successful one), rather than a commercial and cultural powerhouse, is not for us.
Style of buildings has always been of secondary concern, as they are a manifestation only of the activities, and the intensity of activities, taking place. It is the restriction of these activities by limiting them to the physical amount of floor-space that you are allowed in our WHS site that is of central concern…how can we create a vibrant metropolis that maximises its opportunities when central policy is about building size, context and colour?
Again we have always stated that WHS in principle was not a bad thing either. When it was confined to the block that encompasses Castle St, Chapel & James Streets as well as the Pierhead we celebrated as much as any. The site that was submitted to UNESCO does not just encompass the inner areas of downtown’s old commercial heart, but snakes all the way up to William Brown St & St Georges Hall, includes the Albert Dock and balloons out to include much of the Duke St area. It also stretches out along the dock wall to Stanley Dock over two miles north of the Pierhead…To compound the misery, there is a buffer zone that basically encompasses the whole inner core!
If you are happy that all subsequent development will be more in keeping with Commutation Row, Cathedral Chambers and Dukes Terrace…and if you also think that Liverpool’s economic future can be assured by heritage tourism alone, then it may be a day for you to celebrate.
We, of course will be maintaining a watching brief on how the nomination dictates development….trouble is that we will now never really know what we may have been offered as many developers and good architects will now run a mile at the prospect of stepping into the malaise that will be the future ‘building of Liverpool’
© July 2004 Downtown Organisation, Liverpool