Shanghai-style plan

[Peter McGurk]

Do you work for Peel? Something tells me you do....It is up to us to make sure they do not destroy our heritage and legacy.

Liverpool had always been a dynamic commercial city. It had always moved on with the times. It was never scared of money or making a profit. It had never, ever been frightened of change.

***

It’s quite laughable to conceive of an 18th century ‘Waterways’ lamenting the loss of the Pool in which the Old Dock was built or then condemning the infilling of the Old Dock for the Custom House or, the building of Liverpool One and the Hilton on the exact same spot.

Excusing Dolphin House in between, always moving forward. always making it better.

The city has been filling docks since they started building them but the Albert Dock was not demolished, in the 60s or the 70s. The Tobacco Warehouses are still there and nearly all of the water. You don't help yourself by exaggerating - we can all google earth it.

Yes, mistakes have been made but the WHS has done a job. As I said, we’ve kept the best of what we had and leveled the rest.

And it is right to argue for a balance between commercial dynamism and heritage but only where either have value. It is those people that cannot make a judgment on that value - those who say ‘keep all, at all costs’ - who would continue to hold us back. And this is where UNESCO goes too far. Way too far.

***

You say you look forward to a Venice or Amsterdam of the North. Given the constraints you put on yourself this is quite, quite impossible.

You show pictures of cute little canals which are totally out of scale to what we have in Liverpool. We have some very, very large open docks. They are not and never will be an ‘Old’ Amsterdam - unless you start filling in docks. Or unless you mean New Amsterdam, the old docklands, which are incredibly dull and lifeless. Not the Liverpool I know.

It’s just not what Liverpool is and to pretend otherwise is simply to bury your head in the sand and hope that the nasty bogeyman of change will go away.

***

If you were looking for a model to work with, I would offer you Sydney CBD. There’s hardly a stick standing there older than 1920 (QVB, parts of the Intercontinental, the Rocks). Nevertheless, it has kept much and moved on much.

In our own way, we are doing the same.




---------- Post added at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:15 AM ----------

Peel's Liverpool Waters sure is becoming lacklustre and unimaginative but that's due to concessions having to be made because of those that you agree are 100% two faced - UNESCO and EH.

It's a massing model and an illustrative masterplan is all. As it happens I've always argued for something like that massing. Perhaps we'll see some more balls in it after Joe having a go at UNESCO.

The headlines would do us good - "Liverpool abandons UNESCO to welcome Prosperity."