In 2009 Dresden was removed from the World Heritage List due to building of the bridge Waldschlößchenbrücke - a need for the city, but seen as a compromising the cultural landscape of the Dresden Elbe Valley. Now Liverpool is in a similar situation wanting to redevelop its waterfront.With the newly elected Mayor Joe Anderson arguing World Heritage is not much more than “a certificate on the wall in the town hall”, it will be interesting to see whether Liverpool’s World Heritage history comes to an abrupt end in the near future.
How it might look…
Yesterday the British new paper The Guardianhad an interesting story on the case – the comments below the article gives an interesting peak into the tensions Liverpool is facing at the moment:
“What do you think Liverpudlians care more about; having jobs created or keeping a bureaucrat happy that a dilapidated site remains unchanged. Stuff Unesco. Time for the city to stand up for itself” one of the comments reads.
Another one reads: ”It would have been good if you had spoken up about this pie in the sky project before the election, now we are lumbered with concrete joe, who is handing all the green spaces in the city to his fat cat developmer mates. Springfield park, everton park, walton hall park, stanley park. 60% voted for this madness which will benefit them not one jot while anderson lines his pockets, laughs in our face and goes on wrecking our city“.
As long as Liverpool remains a World Heritage Site, neither the citizens nor ‘concrete Joe’ will not be left alone. Will Liverpool choose to or in any case be taken off the list?
Recommended read: Liverpool Waters – review article by R. Moore.
Read more about hunting for Liverpools World Heritage.
Some comments from Linkedin:
1) I would suggest that there is a subtle difference between the Dresden and Liverpool cases.
The Dresden bridge was a perceived need for the city and had been debated over a period of a century and a half. The executed design is clumsy: a steel bridge made to look like concrete. (Why? Ask the designers!) It was the handling of the design and of the management of the project that was the problem more than the fact of the bridge.
The Liverpool situation is different. ‘Liverpool Waters’ does not respond to a demand – merely a speculative investment. Walk round Liverpool today and you will find a grotesque excess of vacant historic and newly-built floor space. Developers and their banks have already gone bust through wishful speculative investment in the city. (Indeed, the word ‘investment’ seems misplaced.)
Liverpool is cited as an example of “heritage classifications being used as a status symbol for purposes of economic regeneration” (‘Heritage and Globalisation’, ed Labadi and Long, Routledge 2010). If the city loses its UNESCO status the wild fury of foolish speculative investment will vanish. In a sense, it is a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In another sense, however, it could be the best thing for the city. Politicians will be forced to look at the realities of the city and address the community’s needs. ‘Grands projets’ are not the solution for Liverpool.
Ironically, the newly elected mayor’s gung-ho attitude could be just what the city needs!
2) The World Heritage Statue for Liverpool is vital for the development of the city. At the same time, the new development should respect the heritage values associated with the heritage site of Liverpool. Maybe if the UNESCO authorized clearer Heritage Policy Documents, which clarify how new developments, particularly mixed-used schemes, can be introduced in such sites, such threats can be accordingly avoided. The Southgate project in Bath is an example of a new development that respects most of the heritage values associated with the relative site.
The problem with the ‘Liverpool Waters’ is that this development does not respect, or even recognize, that there are heritage sites next to it, in terms if its design or planning. Not just the ‘outstanding universal value is important’, but also all other values such as the historical, the economical and the educational values, to name a few.
Moreover, Liverpool should learn from other historic and heritage cities how to re-invent in its valuable buildings, to wit, the Granger town and Southport.
3) #2 is the essential and wise response.
First, UNESCO lacks clarity in its expectations, and this has fuelled ambiguity in Liverpool; also, UNESCO is only looking at one aspect of the overall picture.
Second, Liverpool’s current leaders articulate the World Heritage status as an impediment to their foolhardy and meglomaniac projects of ‘economic development’, projects that are founded solely on massive new construction not on satisfying existing or projected needs. I fully agree with Ataa that the World Heritage statues is vital for the development of the city”; if only the city’s leaders would acknowledge this.
‘Liverpool Waters’ would compete with the existing high level of building vacancy in the World Heritage Site and in recently constructed, over-ambitious and partially failing waterfront developments. To add to this excess with more excess would be profligate in the extreme; as one colleague has described it to me, “creating the ruins of the future”.
‘Liverpool Waters’ represents a major threat to the fundamental viability of the World Heritage Site, without which its “outstanding universal value” has little future. This is not just a question of protecting heritage values, but of securing a sustainable future for the city.
Other, successful sites, such as those mentioned by Ataa, did not achieve their success by fostering competitors; rather, by focusing inititatives where they were required, not countermanding them by competition.
Liverpool needs focus. ‘Liverpool Waters’ would be catastrophic for the heritage values, economy and community of Liverpool. All strength to the opposition: UNESCO, English Heritage and locally. If it requires challenge to the UNESCO status to bring realism and common sense into the equation, so be it.
By: sitesoftransformations on May 24, 2012
at 9:38 pm