Help! Liverpool is stripped of world heritage status
LIVERPOOL’S waterfront was yesterday stripped of its prestigious world heritage status after Unesco accused the city of over-developing its historic Victorian docks.
The maritime vista was awarded the accolade by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in 2004 to honour its history as one of the world’s most important trading centres in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The listing put it on a par with the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal in India. But plans to redevelop derelict docks at the north end of the site, which include a new £500million stadium for Everton Football Club, put the city on a collision course with the UN agency in recent years.
Unesco’s World Heritage Committee voted to delete the waterfront from the list. The committee said developments, including the planned stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, had caused ‘irreversible loss’ and were detrimental to the authenticity of the site.
It will be seen as a humiliating blow for the Beatles’ home city. It is only the third place in 50 years to lose a world heritage listing.
A Government source said culture minister Caroline Dinenage was given little opportunity to address the committee’s concerns and it seemed ‘determined to make an example of Liverpool’. Mayor Joanne Anderson said Unesco had not seen the waterfront with ‘their own eyes’ for a decade. She added: ‘I find it incomprehensible that Unesco would rather Bramley Moore Dock remain a wasteland rather than making a positive contribution to the city’s future.’
The regional mayor, Steve Rotheram, said: ‘Places like Liverpool should not be faced with the binary choice between maintaining heritage status or regenerating left-behind communities.’