New Mersey Ferry Terminal Building

[Howie]

New Mersey Ferry terminal unveiled
Oct 30

2006
EXCLUSIVE By Larry Neild, Daily

Post



REVISED plans for a

new £10m Mersey Ferry terminal at Liverpool’s Pier Head as a lasting legacy to the city’s Capital of Culture year will be unveiled today.

But the

proposal for the 45ft-high, three-storey structure has come as a surprise to the owner of the popular Shanghai Palace Chinese restaurant, which occupies part

of the land needed for the development.

The restaurant will have to be demolished to make way for the new terminal, but owner Joe Farley says he has

not been told about the scheme.

Merseytravel has submitted plans for the new ferry terminal to Liverpool council’s planning

department.

Story continues...

[A.D.Williams]

And, yet, we still wait for the old sunk landing stage to be removed. The less said the

better!

[Howie]

Restaurant blocks

new ferry terminal
Oct 30 2006
By Neil Hodgson, Liverpool Echo





PLANS for a new £10m Pier Head Mersey

ferry terminal were revealed today - and plunged straight into controversy.

The new three-storey terminal will provide better facilities for

passengers and could be ready by spring 2008.

But it requires the demolition of the neighbouring waterfront Shanghai Palace restaurant, whose owner

claims he has not been consulted.

Joe Farley has a long lease and says he has expansion plans of his

own.

Story continues...

[scouserdave]

Good luck to the Shanghai Palace restaurant. It may not look much from the

outside, but the views are cracking. It'll take fortunes (cookies?) to move the Shanghai Palace







[IMG]http

://www.liverpoolpictorial.co.uk/sp/image003.jpg[/IMG]

[Max]

Thats how I like the sky in my day pictures.

Not too cloudy or too Grey in the sky. I like

clear blue sky too, otherwise I'll take none on any day I take any pictures.

Joe Farley? So an Irish surnamed person owns it eh.

[Kev]

Planned ferry terminal 'a trashy tart in front of gently ageing Edwardian beauties'

THE man who complained to the World Heritage

Centre about high-rise building projects close to Liverpool's Pier Head last night condemned the latest plans for a new ferry terminal on the waterfront.



The scheme, exclusively revealed in yesterday's Daily Post, would see a three-storey building for the river ferry service.

But Wayne

Colquhoun of the Merseyside Preservation Trust has already alerted Unesco officials about the scheme.

Last night he said: "Right in front of our

three gently ageing Edwardian beauties they want to stick another trashy tart as if the current proposals for the Pier Head are not bad enough.

"If

someone had said to me you could design a building worse than the present terminal I would have laughed, but it's been done. In Liverpool when we put our

minds to it we can do the impossible, only it's the wrong direction. I urge anyone who cares for World Heritage to write to Unesco at 7 Rue de Fontonoy,

Paris.

"We need a public inquiry and a masterplan agreed by popular consensus not just nodded through by a handful of people without the class or

culture to be able to deliver what Liverpool needs to be a 21st century city on the world stage."

[A.D.W]

Taken on a sunny day in November 2006.

[lindylou]

Taken on a sunny day in November 2006.

That's a nice pic Cissie.

[Kev]

A NEW ferry terminal at Liverpool's world-famous Pier Head is being delayed as planning managers seek more details.

Last night, Wayne Colquhoun, chairman of Liverpool Preservation Trust, said the hitch should pave the way for a complete rethink of the £15m project to save the view of the majestic Three Graces.

Merseytravel have submitted plans for a three-storey building to replace the Mersey Ferry terminal built almost 30 years ago.

The scheme involves demolition of the terminal with its tented roof, as well as the adjoining Shanghai Palace Chinese restaurant.

The replacement building has already attracted comments from a city design panel, which quizzed why the building needed to be so high, and why a roof terrace faced away from the river.

Merseytravel submitted the scheme to Liverpool's planning department last month with the hope it would be put before the planning committee early in the New Year for a decision.

But the plan has now been invalidated at the request of the city planning manager Nigel Lee. He has called for supporting information about access to the proposed building as well as design issues.

When the project is restored to the planning process, a new consultation exercise will be launched.

Last night a city council spokesman said the invalidation process was being used to enable more information to be sought on conservation area matters. continues......

[Kev]

A PROPOSED new terminal for the Mersey ferries will impact on the Pier Head’s famous Three Graces, the country’s main heritage watchdog has said. more

[Louis]

same old stories once again, makes me angry Are we forever gonna be stuck in a victorian/edwardian city?

[Libertarian]

Can't see what the big deal is about the ferry terminal the new building looks very much like what is already there.

I also like the Shangy restaurant must be hard for them having to move and for what another concrete block filled with crappy gift shops selling pens and erasers?

[Merseyrose]

same old stories once again, makes me angry Are we forever gonna be stuck in a victorian/edwardian city?

If I as an outsider/visitor may add my comment/view on all these recent changes:

1. As I said in my reply to Waterways in the Mann Island thread, of course I'll be happy for you Scousers if these changes make you happy and if this really is what you want. I love the city and its people and therefore only wish them all the very best - and after all, it's your city and you have to live in it.

2. However, being an "outsider" and frequent visitor to the city, of course I also have my own views on these changes, even more so after reading all these posts and seeing all these pictures. Before joining this (GREAT) forum, I wasn't really aware of what's going on. I had only read about Liverpool One and the new Museum of Liverpool but didn't know the full details.

3. Of course, I don't mind Liverpool getting a new and/or bigger and better museum, a new hotel etc. here and there; innovations and improvements like these are inevitable, necessary and an important aspect of improving life in a city. Neither do I mind the odd high-rise building and/or skyscraper here or there; there already are a few in Liverpool.

However, I'm neither too fond of the design of the new Museum of Liverpool nor of the proposals for the Central Village. If there are modern (high-rise) buildings or skyscrapers to be erected, they should be placed within the city centre in such a way that they don't contrast/conflict with the traditional architecture too much. With regard to the new buildings at Pier Head/on Mann Island, why not design them in such a way that they match the design and character of the buildings already present (in particular the Three Graces - and graces they are indeed) to make them fit in with the general cosy and charming atmosphere in this area? The same goes for the inner-city area around Bold Street.

Some of the planned designs look great to me, such as the extended canal at Pier Head, the new Chavasse Park and the canal on/near Bold Street. Modern buildings could easily be designed to make them fit in with the existing architecture.

Do you really want the major part of Liverpool to be transformed into a futuristic city made of glass, concrete and steel? Buildings made of these three materials are to be found everywhere nowadays, just visit the pedestrian precinct in any Continental city and you'll find this type of architecture, making most cities look more or less the same, apart from a few older buildings left.

To me as a visitor, Liverpool has always looked beautiful and perfect to me. What I've always loved most about it (apart from its wonderful people) is its unique blend of the rich and vibrant cultural life of a big city and its cosy atmosphere, created by the charm of its old buildings and the flair of its streets. If you complain about all of your Edwardian/Georgian/Victorian buildings, please bear in my mind that this is a special heritage which not all cities or countries have.

You, the people of Liverpool, probably have no say in these changes anyway; in your city, it's probably the same as everywhere - the people themselves have no say in what affects them the most.

Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to spoil anybody's excitement, anticipation or happiness about these changes. I'm as interested as anyone to see where Liverpool is heading and what it will look like in the near future and I find these changes very exciting, too. I'd just like to point out to you what a wonderful and unique heritage you have and that some of it may be worthwhile preserving - once it's gone, you may miss it more than you can imagine now.

[Waterways]

Merseyrose,

Liverpool is the home of the modern building - and the skyscraper. The world's first steel framed glass curtain walled building is Oriel Chambers - 1864. (I think Ged took this pic)



The city was very advanced over 100 years ago and didn't care about the past too much. Take the towers off the Liver Buildings and it is a building that is seen in NY and Chicago at the time. The tall skyscrapers in New York were based on its construction method. The later glass towers on Oriel Chambers.

There is around 12km of granite quayed docks and these were built into the river - all reclaimed from the water. They have been compared with the building of the pyramids - and that is about right.

The city cannot stand still. We have a fantastic legacy of redundant dock waters to be developed, that other cities would drool over. Yet the city sees fit to fill these water spaces to build uninspiring buildings on them. See my link in my sig. The city can become an Amsterdam, and quite quickly too. It must be done right and the centre must move towards the docks water spaces. Some ideas of what may happen in Central Docks:
Liverpool Waters

The idea is to get people into the centre and add vibrancy. That can be done by high rise apartments. So far it has worked and needs to get more dense.

Then we have an old underground rail system that needs extending - the city is full of disused stations under it ready for re-use - some are amongst the oldest rail tunnels in the world. High density requires a rapid transit rail system.

Ian Nairn (architectural writer and BBC broadcaster), Britain's Changing Towns, 1967:
"The scale and resilience of the buildings and people [of Liverpool] is amazing - it is a world city, far more so than London or Manchester. It doesn't feel like anywhere else in Lancashire: comparisons always end up overseas - Dublin, or Boston, or Hamburg. The city is tremendous, and so, right up to the First World War, were the abilities of the architects who built over it - the less said about the last forty years the better.. The centre is humane and convenient to walk around in, but never loses its scale. And, in spite of the [Luftwaffe] bombings and the carelessness, it is still full of superb buildings. Fifty years ago it must have outdone anything in England."

London Illustrated News - 1886:
'Liverpool, thanks to modern science & commercial enterprise, to the spirit & intelligence of the townsmen, & to the administration of the Mersey docks & harbour board, has become a wonder of the world. It is the New York of Europe, a world city rather than merely British provincial'.

US author, Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick, compared the vast construction to that of the pyramids - he was not far off in the magnitude of the constructions. 'Redburn, His First Voyage' by Herman Melville 1849...

"Previous to this, having only seen the miserable wooden wharves and shambling piers of New York... in Liverpool I beheld long China walls of masonry; vast piers of stone; and a succession of granite-rimmed docks, completely enclosed. The extent and solidity of these structures seemed equal to what I had read of the old pyramids of Egypt. In magnitude, cost and durability the docks of Liverpool surpass all others in the world... for miles you may walk along that riverside, passing dock after dock, like a chain of immense fortresses.

Prince's Dock, of comparatively recent construction, is perhaps the largest of all and is well known to American sailors from the fact that it is mostly frequented by the American shipping. Here lie the noble New York packets, which at home are found at the foot of Wall-Street; and here also lie the Mobile and Savannah cotton ships and traders."


UNESCO stated that Liverpool played a major part in the largest migration of people in history. More people left for America via Liverpool than any other port. Scandinavians and Germans had to get to Liverpool to get to America. Many stayed. The old docks are of world importance.

But we can't stand still Nothing happened in the past 30 years, losing half of the population. The city desperately needs to move on.

[Merseyrose]

Thank you so much for your interesting reply!

Yes, the docks system in Liverpool is probably unique. All the buildings mentioned in the quotations were modern at the time but now are essential features of the city - and part of its heritage and beautiful to look at, too.

As I said, I'm happy for you all because of these changes, some of which are necessary, some of which are great, and some of which are both. Of course every city keeps changing in the course of time, it's only natural and inevitable. Otherwise we'd still be living in medieval towns and clear out our nightpots into the streets. LOL! I'm not opposed to progress, nor to concrete, steel and glass buildings, skyscrapers (actually, I loved them in New York) etc. I just don't want to see Liverpool losing its wonderful and unique heritage and character and turn into another face-, character- and soulless city which can be found anywhere today.