Liverpool deserve to lose UNESCO World Heritage Status
Waterhouse
In this article we’ll take a bike
Tour around the unesco designated area of central liverpool and we’ll look at how dresden has suffered since delisting.
We’ll ask the question: We’re going to go on a tour around the UNESCO designated area and we’ll start in the docks to the north. This is Stanley Dock. On the left, the Titanic Hotel and on the right, the Tobacco Warehouse
The Stanley Dock lift bridge has already been restored and is a striking visual feature. These docks and the six-sided ‘Docker’s Clock’ designed by Jesse Hartley are awaiting renovation. We can see how the relics of the industrial era are being transformed into hotels, homes, tourist attractions and more. Further north along Regent Road is Bramley Moore Dock, designed by Jesse Hartley and opened in 1848.
The Everton Football Club stadium seems to be the project that convinced UNESCO to delist the city. But the Bramley Moore Dock has been lying derelict for years. It’s not accessible to the public. It is not economically productive. The architects of the Everton project have stated that they are doing their utmost to preserve and enhance the site and that if the Everton football club in the distant future decides to move, the site can be reverse-engineered back into a dock. The hydraulic tower is going to be restored and opened up to the public. The project will bring new life and economic development to this economically depressed part of Liverpool. The headlines state that Liverpool has been stripped of its UNESCO world heritage status.
On the page on the UNESCO website, the title now has strikethrough applied to it, and maybe the page will eventually be deleted. But does that mean Liverpool’s status as a world heritage city has been deleted? No, only the word UNESCO has been deleted. UNESCO will lose its association with the great city of Liverpool, one of the most famous and best-loved cities in the world. We’ve reached the northernmost point of the heritage area, where the 19th century dock wall ends by Sandhills Lane. Now let’s go to The Stanley Flight on the Leeds Liverpool. Canal. The UNESCO area encircles the locks and the area at the top by the Merseyrail viaduct. This once hidden flight of locks, designed by Jesse Hartley, takes the Leeds and Liverpool Canal down to the level of the dock system.
So what does the delisting mean? Does it mean that the six areas in the historic centre and docklands of the maritime mercantile City of Liverpool no longer bear witness to the development of one of the world’s major trading centres in the 18th and 19th centuries, that Liverpool did not play an important role in the growth of the British Empire and was not a pioneer in the development of modern dock technology, transport systems and port management? (I’ve adapted the wording from the UNESCO page here).
No, of course not. Liverpool has been and always will be one of the most significant cities in the world for all those reasons and more. Liverpool is one of the top five most popular tourist destinations in the country. It has 27. Grade 1 listed buildings and 85 Grade II* star buildings. Liverpool has one of the longest established Chinese communities in Europe, the world’s most famous music stars and a vibrant music scene today, it's still a UNESCO music city. This former industrial building has been converted into a fabulous music venue, the Invisible Wind Factory.
This is Princes Dock - not part of the. UNESCO area - it’s been transformed through new tall buildings. And Liverpool is of course a great sporting city.
Liverpool has countless attractions that are still
Here for everyone to enjoy.
The Dresden Elbe Valley was delisted after the construction of the Waldschlösschenbrücke. I have it on good authority that the delisting has had no effect whatsoever on tourism, though the traffic situation in Dresden has improved considerably! So let's continue our tour around the approximate boundary of the world heritage designated area. Here's Liverpool Parish Church or the Church of St Nicholas. Liverpool is full of magnificent buildings.
This is Hargreaves Buildings on Chapel Street, built in 1859. On the right, the Western Approaches Museum, about Liverpool’s wartime role and Rumford Street has some important American heritage. As we cycle up Fazakerley Street, we can see how the facades on the sides and the rear of the buildings are also magnificent. This is the Albany Building on New Hall Street and the facade of the Liverpool Exchange Buildings on Chapel Street. This building is on Ormond Street and what was that thing used for? On Bixteth Street another building, not famous, but still magnificent and now home to a vegetarian restaurant. The former Exchange station is sadly no longer a station. The modern addition doesn’t match or match up to the original. Along Moorfields we can see the Grade II listed Prudential Building, designed by Alfred.
All these buildings help to tell the story of Liverpool as a maritime mercantile city. Now we freewheel down Hatton Garden with the magnificent old Fire Station on the right. Here's another conversion of a Victorian facade. Who do those medieval-style carved faces represent? This is the view across Byrom St to Dale Street the after removal of the flyovers, the 1930s corner building now fully revealed. On the other side, the often ignored south side of the World Museum. The boundary continues behind the World Museum past the remains of the flyover and the rear of the Central Library with its names of authors, now no longer seen by drivers now the flyover has gone. The world heritage buildings on William Brown Street need no introduction.
The UNESCO boundary continues around the perimeter of Lime Street Station, the oldest still-operating grand terminus mainline station in the world - that’s from. Wikipedia - down Skelhorne Street on the other side of the station, then along Queen Square bus station onto Whitechapel and into the Cavern Quarter, through Liverpool One and up towards Chinatown and back down towards the south docks. So to continue my editorial, the UNESCO principles might be appropriate for an ancient temple complex in the jungle of Central America or maybe a poor coastal town in South East Asia with unique architecture threatened by development, but Liverpool is a big, important port city in Europe that needs to pay its way, that needs to create opportunities for the people who live there.
Liverpool must develop and Liverpool has done this - mostly - respecting and enhancing its heritage. As Chris Brown, Director of Marketing Liverpool said in an interview with The Guide Liverpool, well over £600m has gone into the city's heritage and conservation projects within the world heritage site boundaries. But the officials from UNESCO never came to visit for the last 10 years. The decision was taken remotely. It appears that UNESCO never gave any ideas or input on how to develop the city whilst adhering to its principles.
Liverpool City Council has developed the city - mostly - respecting and enhancing its heritage, as here in Wapping Dock where a 19th century warehouse has been transformed by conversion into waterside apartments. And just take a look at the Albert Dock, twice threatened with demolition but then saved, reimagined, redeveloped and now one of the most popular tourist attractions anywhere. UNESCO added Liverpool to its list in 2004. At the time it seemed a great accolade. But maybe after the problems of the 1980s we'd forgotten just how significant Liverpool is. UNESCO status gave a boost in confidence. But now things are different. So the question is not Does Liverpool deserve to lose its world heritage status? The question is: Did UNESCO have the right to pass judgement on Liverpool’s development plans? If the delisting was intended to send out a message to the world that Liverpool is a city that - mostly - neglects and destroys its heritage, then the decision was wrong.
The UNESCO officials objected to the filling in of a dock, but this is not the first time it’s happened. A historic dock dating from 1771 was filled in and covered over for some office blocks and a bus station. The name of that area: The Pier Head and the name of the office buildings? The Three Graces.