Start lookin Spike, it's going to happen.
I think this Year has been good but really its been poorly organised by the council. Strategically the amount of events was average. Individually those events were great but i believe the majority of the 'cultural' events were nothing to do with the council.
The Liverpool sound concert only went ahead because Mr McCartney stepped in. Matthew street was great but this is a yearly event and anything is better than the shambles of the previous year. The Tall Ships was organised by sail training UK, the council bid to get it, admittedly they did help organise the support infrastructure such as the hospitality and the locations (why Peel want to make the docks closer to the pierhead shallower when this event brought in 8m in a week is stupid, but that's a discussion we've had before). The Honda powerboats; again bid for by the culture company but organised by Honda, but i think they've still not bid for the event for this year. I may be wrong. There are others but those are the few events that spring to my mind (just an after thought, the ice rink at St Georges hall, i was embarrassed when my misses took her brother from N.I. to go skating. It was tiny and didn't warrant ?6 for an hour). la Machine which was great and admittedly i think organised and funded by the culture company same again for the lamb bananas, thumbs up.
Regarding the legacy we have Liverpool 1. hurray! But surely (yes and don't call me Shirley) this is a private enterprise investment and not council organised. The new museum which replaced the failed cyst building, still not finished. The canal link (yes i have gripes about it but i can see it being a crowd pleaser especially when they transform the central docks) still not finished but ultimately British waterways and Peel would have to claim the credit for that one.
The two i think that the council can be happy to claim is the new cruise liner terminal. A great bit of thinking, now they just need to sort out the baggage and customs facilities and we'll be on to a winner. And also the arena and convention centre which they've been promising for years.
All in all, i think the council and the government have done a good job in providing the city with the opportunities for more private investment to be pumped in leading up to 2008, but should the council and the government not have already been doing that anyway? To me that is one of the councils primary remits which i think it still needs to address. When you think that they've lost at least ?2billion in investment (maro and a few others) and what real legacy have we got from 2008 that most other cities didn't get from the likes of the millennium projects in the late 90's/early 00's?
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Was this our overdue millennium party? i don't know about you but I think so.
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