LIVERPOOL'S Walk of Fame looks certain to be placed around the city's new multi-million pound arena and conference centre at Kings Dock.
The Culture Company is in talks with Bob Prattey, chief executive of the Liverpool Kings Arena, about creating the Hollywood-style walk in one of the public areas at the dock.
The aim would be to set in stone the names of Liverpool artists, film and television stars from the days of Merseybeat to the present day.
The walk would form a centrepiece for the Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008.
A walk of fame was created on Otterspool Promenade as part of the International Garden Festival in 1984.
Much of that walk remains in place, but some of the stones containing the names of famous sons and daughters of Liverpool are damaged, and the area has been badly neglected. Radio personality Billy Butler, whose career in the music industry goes back to the days of Beatlemania and the Merseybeat era, has held talks with a number of city councillors about a fitting way of remembering famous people from the city.
He told officials that he wanted to find a way of commemorating and paying tribute to all of the excellent Liverpool musicians who played a role in the so-called Merseybeat era of the 1960s.
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The city's new music development manager, Keith Blundell, wants the walk of fame to pay tribute to a broad spectrum across the arts, not just those linked to music.
The idea for a new Walk of Fame, similar to the world-famous walk in Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, comes after concerns about the state of the Otterspool walk.
Labour culture spokesman Steve Rotherham first called for action to be taken. It led to Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman calling for immediate action to repair the city's rundown Walk of Fame ahead of European Capital of Culture in 2008.
The mile-long walkway, bearing the names of Liverpool stars of stage and screen, was laid at Otterspool promenade at a cost of £50,000.
The Beatles, Cilla Black, DJ John Peel, Ken Dodd and Kenny Everett had their names immortalised in brass letters on the white granite flagstones.
Mrs Ellman said: "Liverpool is world-renowned as the birthplace of an important chapter in pop culture. Millions of people from Britain, Europe and across the globe come to see the sights."
The city council's Leisure and Culture Select Committee will be debating the proposed Walk of Fame on July 31.
larryneild@dailypost.co.uk
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