Unesco set to Strip Liverpool of it's World Heritage Status

[dennis tooth]

Sorry chaps,, but if its a straight choice that is between cruise ships and 'Norton for crap' as it reads then theres only one choice. Thats been in Viz magazine that sign, alright the chinese telephoto lens tourists might not 'get' it but fuck them.

[Mr. Beast]

too right, that sign consistently provided me with some of the happiest moments of my childhood. is it still there?

[VladimirIlyich]

Your talking about Nortons scrap. I don't see the problem myself as its further towards Seaforth Docks anyway.

 

This was Thomsons major objection because they wanted to dock at the pier head and let the passengers see the liver building and the city centre rather than a scrapheap.

I can see their point personally.

 

That was a major coup that was fucked up as Thomson dont board anywhere in the UK and it would have been a first at the time.

[Xherdan]

A fucking market? It has worked for Amsterdam I suppose.

[captainharris]

[Bruce Spanner]

And gone…

 

Fucking cowboys.

 

‘The recommendation cited local and national government failure to protect Liverpool from the development of skyscrapers at the docks, something Unesco had been warning about since 2017.

 

It specifically referred to changes to the £5bn Liverpool waters redevelopment scheme which Liverpool city council did not allow Unesco chance to advise on before the plans were approved.

 

Liverpool’s representatives have clashed with the organisation over the need to balance economic development with preservation of the historic appearance of the docks, ever since the waterfront was listed as “at risk” in 2012.

 

The report released on Monday stated that Unesco had given the UK “consistent advice” for the last nine years and that “not complied with the advice and repeated requests of the world heritage committee”.

 

It said the UK had “unequivocally confirmed” that there were no legal methods locally or nationally to stop development in order to preserve the world heritage status.

 

While some conservation projects had been successful, it said, developments at the waterfront and the northern dock area “have progressively eroded the integrity” of the world heritage site.’

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/unesco-says-liverpool-waterfront-should-lose-heritage-status-over-skyscrapers

[Bjornebye]

A Unesco committee has recommended that Liverpool should lose its World Heritage status.

The threat of Liverpool's demotion has rumbled on for more than a decade after modern developments on the city's waterfront.

Liverpool City Council said about £1.5bn had been invested in upgrading 157 heritage assets.

A final decision will be made when Unesco confirms the sites on its World Heritage List at a meeting next month.

The new report by the World Heritage Committee said "with deep regret" new developments in the city had resulted in "serious deterioration and irreversible loss of attributes".

It cited the Liverpool Waters project and the approved plans for Everton FC's new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock.

 

A government spokesperson said: "The UK is a world leader in cultural heritage protection and Liverpool's World Heritage Status reflects the important role the city has played in our nation's history.

"We are disappointed in this recommendation and will continue to work with Unesco, Historic England and Liverpool City Council to ensure the World Heritage Committee can make an informed decision when it meets next month."

Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson tweeted it would "take time to digest" the report as it was "quite detailed".

But she added she would be asking the committee to defer and review the city's case in a year.

'Pushed it'

Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region mayor, said it was a "deeply disappointing" decision and pleaded with the committee to reconsider it.

He tweeted: "We are proud of our history but our heritage is a vital part of our regeneration.

"I'd urge them to take up our invitation to visit rather than taking their decision sat around a table on the other side of the world."

Heritage campaigner Wayne Colquhoun said city officials had ignored repeated warnings about new developments - and the Everton stadium plans look to have been the final straw.

"If you're going to fill [that] dock in - as a mercantile and maritime city on top of already filling the other docks in - you're displaying that over your universal value.

"They've pushed the boundaries - and pushed it and pushed it."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-57556884

[Kepler-186]

Building bog standard apartments for foreign investors on what should be a huge interactive maritime museum with liveable spaces nearby. Building a stadium with no public transport infrastructure to speak off, when an area of the city already rejuvenated by the brewery is still crying out for it. Losing a global title. Frank “Downtown” McKenna. 
2008 Capital of Culture. 2021

a culture of capitalism. 
 

Plenty of other areas of the city need investment but I guess putting “river views but no GPs surgery or primary schools” trumps it. 
 

Hamburg has managed to be rebuilt and preserve its maritime legacy. 
 

Shite. 

[Section_31]

Fully deserved, city centre is a monstrosity. Well done to everyone involved.

[VladimirIlyich]

4 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Fully deserved, city centre is a monstrosity. Well done to everyone involved.

Not to worry. The tories will have it looking like a zombie wasteland in no time. Or maybe we can get back to transorting those 'dark coloured chaps around the world once again.'

[JagSquared]

Can I ask a dumb question what did the UNESCO status bring to the city? Tourism? Grants?
 

I don’t think I’ve ever visited a place purely because of it having such a status, and let’s be honest it’s not exactly somewhere you would want to really visit as it is.

 

the plans for development look pretty crap too to be honest. 

[Kepler-186]

Peel’s updated plans for Liverpool Waters. 

[VladimirIlyich]

1 minute ago, JagSquared said:

Can I ask a dumb question what did the UNESCO status bring to the city? Tourism? Grants?
 

I don’t think I’ve ever visited a place purely because of it having such a status, and let’s be honest it’s not exactly somewhere you would want to really visit as it is.

 

the plans for development look pretty crap too to be honest. 

I didnt even know the city was on any UNESCO list until Everton put a traffic cone down on the dock.

[Bruce Spanner]

3 minutes ago, JagSquared said:

Can I ask a dumb question what did the UNESCO status bring to the city? Tourism? Grants?
 

I don’t think I’ve ever visited a place purely because of it having such a status, and let’s be honest it’s not exactly somewhere you would want to really visit as it is.

 

the plans for development look pretty crap too to be honest. 

I agree with your larger point, but it’s still nice to be noticed for, and advertised as a place that…

 

1. Represents a masterpiece of human design.
2. Exhibits an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design.
3. To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared.
4. Is an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates a significant stage in human history.
5. Is an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture, or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change.
6. Is directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance.
7. Contains superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional beauty and aesthetic importance.
8. Is an outstanding example representing major stages of Earth’s history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features.
9. Is an outstanding example representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, and communities of plants and animals.
10. Contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

We should preserve the good stuff and not pave paradise etc etc.

[Jarvinja Ilnow]

32 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Not to worry. The tories will have it looking like a zombie wasteland in no time. Or maybe we can get back to transorting those 'dark coloured chaps around the world once again.'

Credit where credit is due, it was a joint effort between the Tories and Liverpool Labour - stretching back to the 80s.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Fuck UNESCO

[Paulie Dangerously]

That horrible, black, angular building is a fucking eyesore on the water front and should never have been built. It's fucking awful. 

[Section_31]

1 hour ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

That horrible, black, angular building is a fucking eyesore on the water front and should never have been built. It's fucking awful. 

It's the buildings that serve no purpose which annoy me, it's criminal that so many people have been complicit in ruining the look of the place, tacitly or otherwise.

 

A wacky museum I can live with, what I can't are endless, and I mean endless rows of high rise, fuck ugly, empty studio apartments which, despite having been empty since they were built two, five or even ten years ago, are next to a building site where yet more are being thrown up.

 

I could never stand Manchester for that reason, like a giant Meccano model of a city, gray, soulless, an unholy alliance twixt communist experiment and art student wet dream. 

 

Someone basically scooped up a tenth of it and dropped it in the middle of town. Unlike Manchester though, nobody actually has any money to live there, because its industries basicslly amounts to Primark and the Passport Office.

[Kepler-186]

I’ve no time for anything to do

with Peel in general. They expanded Seaforth Docks after a handshake with Osborne and promises of “jobs”, without the necessary infrastructure in place, but expect tax payers to fund a new road through the last bit of proper green space nearby. The existing road goes right through residential areas, and Peel response is simply “ once it leaves the dock estate it’s not our problem”. 
 

So much so it’s impacting the freight and logistics of the HGV firms.

 

https://theloadstar.com/port-of-liverpool-imploding-as-congestion-grows-and-hauliers-refuse-to-enter/

 

 

Same with Liverpool and Wirral Waters. Sat on the land as it accrues value while promising development. 
 

Big multinationals aren’t going to relocate because of some standard office blocks: not without government incentives like when Maersk relocated a lot of staff in 2008. 
 

A competent council would have realised Liverpool’s USP is its history and fought tooth and nail to grow it accordingly. American visitors are genuinely blown away by the history, warts and all, not just The Beatles. 
 

It pisses me off though that all

this development has ruined the uniqueness of the city centre while certain suburbs have been left high and dry. 
 

Money talks and all that. The way of life that made the city a UNESCO site is just an exhibit in the Museum of Liverpool now. 
 

 

[rb14]

Posted the following on the "Sh*kes he*d" thread on the *f. I make no apologies for reposting it here...

 

I can't believe the way UNESCO are getting criticised for this. This is what they do. Perhaps you'd like them to start selling ice creams instead. Asking them to mind their own business is akin to wondering why the National Trust aren't involved in the space race. If the government of Uttar Pradesh built an Aldi next door to the Taj Mahal, UNESCO wouldn't be very pleased. The docks are a massive, historically important site. If we want to permanently destroy parts of that, it comes at a number of costs, risking losing UNESCO status is but one. The stadium is one of the final straws. Who's to blame? Liverpool City Council for granting permission. Not Ev*rton for asking, not Moshiri, Liverpool City Council. 

 

I've said all along that we destroy areas of historical significance at our peril. There is no shortage of suitable land that could accommodate a new Ev stadium. Indeed the docks are suitable. But ignoring the financial cost, here are a couple of others:

1. Destroy a large area of historic importance. 

2. Risk losing UNESCO status. 

 

Whether we think it is better do something with BMD than nothing is utterly irrelevant. 

[Strontium]

UNESCO is a convenient scapegoat for the politicians who have led us to this point. The whole point of world heritage status is that it's about preserving world heritage. Our dock system is our heritage, and the council want to fill it in and throw up a shitty stadium (obviously we all know that the unicorn arena won't happen).

 

Oddly enough when they needed to expand Cairo they never thought about knocking down the pyramids to do it.

[Chris]

Said it at the time. Those monstrosities, especially that black angular thing, next to the Graces would fuck up the waterfront. Shit idea then, shit idea now. Should never have been approved and this is the result. Even before the Blueshite got involved.

[Section_31]

There's fuck all in these new buildings either. It's like seeing a cut down version of the Manhattan skyline but instead of banks and media companies they're empty flats and multi story carparks. 

 

You get the leaders you deserve though sadly. Faced with the widespread chicanery of Jo Anderson we anointed Joanne Anderson - the symbolism is perfect. 

 

Coupled with the walking accent in an empty Hugo Boss suit that is Steve Rotheram, rest assured the city's future is in safe hands. 

[Qwikage]

I am not from Liverpool so can only comment on what I see as an outsider.

 

I remember the last time I visited the city with @Jennings. I bored him shitless wittering on about the architecture of the buildings in the city centre. There are some truly stunning buildings there and the whole of the city has an air of industry and purpose about it. 

Some cities have a feel of claustrophobia and an unwelcome aura (Manchester is one, Peterborough another) but I never feel anything other than relaxed and a little bit in awe of the scale of the docks when I am in Liverpool.

 

There is a serious danger of the city going the way of Glasgow Clydeside in that it could be swallowed up by spreadsheet developers trading industrial heritage for Brise Soleil bedecked, glazed and powder coated aluminium clad monstrosities. I do hope it doesn't as I Love the city.

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, Qwikage said:

I am not from Liverpool so can only comment on what I see as an outsider.

 

I remember the last time I visited the city with @Jennings. I bored him shitless wittering on about the architecture of the buildings in the city centre. There are some truly stunning buildings there and the whole of the city has an air of industry and purpose about it. 

Some cities have a feel of claustrophobia and an unwelcome aura (Manchester is one, Peterborough another) but I never feel anything other than relaxed and a little bit in awe of the scale of the docks when I am in Liverpool.

 

There is a serious danger of the city going the way of Glasgow Clydeside in that it could be swallowed up by spreadsheet developers trading industrial heritage for Brise Soleil bedecked, glazed and powder coated aluminium clad monstrosities. I do hope it doesn't as I Love the city.

It all went tits up as soon as they knocked the Yankee Bar down.