Originally Posted by
Peter McGurk
Take your line on UNESCO... back in the day, the search was on for an event to put the city back on the map (a World Expo was considered amongst others). The city decided to prepare a very thorough survey and management plan of its heritage assets and an application to UNESCO for listing.
UNESCO graciously accepted the city’s invitation to review same and to visit and to put us on their list. They did little else.
The city approached UNESCO and they came and saw and said yes. What else are they supposed to do? Provide bricklayers?
Far from throw that ‘rule book’ away, there is nothing in it which would prohibit the kind of development that Peel now envisage.
Nor was there any absolute prohibition on filling in docks and in any event this has not happened, nor will it. We are none of us stupid, we can see for ourselves what water there is and what water there is not.
This is lies. Peel propose to fill in most of West Waterloo Dock. Peel have not taken into account anything of heritage of the old docks - NOTHING. Just cheap and nasty tat on renders is all we saw. The sort that will look tired and forlorn in the harsh, windy, salty river air.
In any event, our heritage is not in bricks, mortar and whether there’s water in between or not. It is the bold and enterprising nature of our city. The buildings we keep serve to remind us of that and to help to keep it alive.
But want it dead for ever.
Peel haven’t. They have listened. You need only look at what they started with and what they propose now. But it is none the less do-able for all that. It’s not uneconomic, doomed-to-failure noddy boxes and barges
Lacklustre is an understatement for what was offered. Peel have done a good PR job, but listened? Nah! They could not even read the rules of UNESCO. Peel preserve heritage? One thing UNESCO pointed out was that Liverpool had historic docks but no historic ships. I do not see Peel excavating docks from canal boat depths to accommodate historic ships near he city centre. They treat unique Liverpool like a mill town - shallow canals and barges. That is all they understand.
And what benefit would a ‘New Amsterdam’ bring? There is empty land a plenty in Walton, Kirkdale and Everton for development of that kind of modest scale.
Waterways in Walton? New to me. You appear to have lost the plot. The benefits of a waterscaped city like Venice and Amsterdam is all too clear to see. They are world-renowned. They kept their heritage and expanded sympathetically.
The population of the Liverpool side of the Atlantic Gateway Strategic Investment Area, the former heart of Walton and Kirkdale and all that is scouse (800 hectares also known as ‘Northshore’ - of which Central Docks is only one-fifth) is... precisely, zero.
We’d do rather better to attend to that than shackle the growth of the city centre.
Well as Peel own it they would try to tackle that. The population is zero now, but the aim is a waterscaped city on the brilliant water legacy which other cities in the world would drool over. Then they see how bad Liverpool handle such a gift from the past.
Peel bought the land, along with the MDHC. It wasn’t free, even when the port was on its arse and no one else was interested. They’ve been holding it since. Expensive - money to buy companies, with or without land, does not come free either.
The land (and that is also water in economic terms) has increased in value with Peel doing sweet nothing. Peel also land bank near Switch Island. Peel are quite prepared to wait decades to take their windfalls in which they did nothing but leave the land. The WHS of Central Docks mean Peel can split the docks from the main commercial north sector and sell off parts Central Docks, which was difficult to do previously.
No one, apart from EH, has problem with tall buildings - it is where they are put. However they may form a wall if too close to the river, like what occurred on London's South Bank. Talls can go predominately on he land side of the Dock Rd, but Peel do not own that.
Economic pressures matter. Money matters, but if you have form business case that is well thought out they become less of a matter.
I was reading today that 1 in 3 houses in Liverpool have no employment. Some people survive on £20 a week net of ‘fixed costs’. There are people, some in positions of influence, some in non-elected and unrepresentative organisations like UNESCO, who have actively and expressly preferred a ‘do-nothing’ policy for the sake of ‘heritage’.
For God's sake!! He is blaming UNESCO! They were called in and set the status. They never appeared unannounced. Having developments conform to "heritage" is a big thing - it would make any development attractive and salable. That appears to go over the heads of Peel. Their mindset is geared another way. UNESCO approved of the Mann Island wedges. Saying UNESCO are some sort of Luddites is quite plainly asinine. UNESCO have made the world look at Liverpool in different eyes.
There must be sound economic drivers to make it work or else it will stay as it. Dark tanks and desolation, bound in aspic, stuck in the 1950s (or rather the 1970s). An excuse for failure.
There are sound economic drivers.
Perhaps this allows you to prefer the exploitation of the working man for personal profit of the very few that the Duke’s Dock Warehouses represent (the clue is in the name) rather than the economic and social benefits of the Echo Arena, ugly as it might or might not be. Only you can say. But there was no other use for them as economically beneficial anywhere on the horizon, or ever.
They said there was no other use for the Albert Dock either. The city needs the Echo Arena. but not in that location. See:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/KingsDock.html
The arena should have gone here...
The picture above is Queens Dock with Kings Dock to the right. On the land side of Queens Dock on the waters edge, where the tower is proposed, would have been an ideal location for the arena with a water facing aspect. The area within the red lines. The marked area is full of ramshackle industrial buildings awaiting clearance. Top right of the picture is where the arena was built. Where land tapers into the water is where the branch docks were filled in. Note that to the right of the Customs House built over the graving dock, one of the branch docks has been filled in to create a car park. The disused Wapping rail tunnel emerges to the bottom right just off picture, which is easily brought back into service serving the complex and surrounding districts.
Architects would have gone wild designing around the intertwining waters and quays of Queens and Kings Docks, giving a far superior waterscape than that ugly IKEA looking Arena. We could have had both. But got the worse deal.
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It is a great shame that many of the more enterprising have left the city and will not be coming back. Or at least not while it continues to look back. The city's population is half what it was in 1938. Half. And still flat lining. People are still leaving.
The population moved to just outside the city. Merseyside is 1.5 million. You need to known more about economics and likes and that Thatcher/Reagan were responsible for much of the inner-city decline in the USA and UK by outsourcing to China. Witness the masses of ugly scrap piles at Liverpool docks giving an appalling impression, to be shipped to Spain and Taiwan because the steel industry was decimated in the UK.
But one thing to thank Peel for is, they’re still here. They’re still here, they’re still looking forward and they’re still investing. Peel have spent millions and not a brick laid. No windfall profits to be had there. Only hard work, money, risk and enterprise.
What tripe! The land they own has risen in value for doing NOTHING much at all. If a factory buys new machinery and leaves it, they lose money as the machines do not make money by operating, the land sharks make money by doing NOTHING.
Peel have come up with renders over the years of various projects. None have materialised:
- Post-panamax container terminal at Seaforth
- Freight terminal at the airport,
- Wirral Waters,
- Liverpool Waters,
- Shanghai Tower.
- Port Salford
Many of the proposals entail filling in water spaces to create valuable land. An attractive waterscape is being transformed into a bland landscape.
We need people to maintain the heritage aspect of the docks and increase the water aspect even further. Land is everywhere. Land around attractive waterspaces is not.
Peel are very 'longterm', as speculative land-banking companies are. They will watch the waterscape rot and rub their hands. We will probably be dead by the time Wirral Waters or Liverpool Waters is actually started. Still, they've got 5,000,000,000 years until the Sun destroys the Earth.
Don't hold your breath.
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