Unesco strips Liverpool of world heritage status

(File photo) An aerial view taken of a Mersey Ferry pulling away from Pier Head, near the Liver Building, as it travels on the River Mersey in Liverpool, north west England. (AFP).

The UN cultural agency Unesco has voted to remove Liverpool’s waterfront from its list of world heritage sites, citing concerns about overdevelopment including plans for a new football stadium. Liverpool was named a World Heritage Site in 2004, joining landmarks such as the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The heritage label gives historic sites access to UN conservation funding as well as featuring in tourist guidebooks across the world. At committee talks chaired by China, 13 delegates voted in favour of the proposal and five against – just one more than the two-thirds majority required to delete a site from the global list. “It means that the site of Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City is deleted from the World Heritage List,” Tian Xuejun, chairman of Unesco’s World Heritage Committee, declared. It is only the third such removal, after previous decisions affecting Oman and Germany, and followed two days of committee discussions that exposed tensions about how cities around the world can preserve their past while also moving forward. Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram called it “a retrograde step” taken by officials “on the other side of the world”. “Places like Liverpool should not be faced with the binary choice between maintaining heritage status or regenerating left-behind communities – and the wealth of jobs and opportunities that come with it,” he said. Joanne Anderson, Liverpool’s mayor, said the decision to remove the city from the list was “incomprehensible” coming a decade after Unesco officials last visited. She hopes to appeal the decision: “I’m hugely disappointed and concerned. Our World Heritage site has never been in better condition having benefitted from hundreds of millions of pounds of investment.” Liverpool City Council cabinet member Harry Doyle told AFP that he was “extremely disappointed by the results” but said the city’s heritage was “still here to stay”. “We’re even more disappointed that Unesco declined our offer to come to the city and see for themselves the work that’s going on,” he said. “They’ve made this decision in isolation halfway across the world.” The UK government also expressed disappointment, saying that Liverpool “still deserves its world heritage status”. However, Unesco delegates heard the redevelopment plans, including high-rise buildings, would “irreversibly damage” the heritage of the port in northwest England. The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises Unesco on the heritage list, said that the UK government had been “repeatedly requested” to come up with stronger assurances about the city’s future. The planned new stadium for Everton football club was approved by the government without any public enquiry, and “is the most recent example of a major project that is completely contrary” to Unesco goals, it said. Several countries had backed the UK, agreeing that it would be a “radical” step in the midst of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and urging more time for a new city council elected in May. A corruption scandal linked to regeneration funding had engulfed the old city leadership, prompting the national government to step in temporarily before the May local elections. Those who argued against delisting Liverpool included Australia, whose own listing for the Great Barrier Reef is threatened in this year’s Unesco deliberations. Norway in contrast said that while it is “painfully aware” of conflicts between development and heritage conservation, a “delicate balance” was possible, which was lacking in Liverpool. The waterfront and docks of Liverpool were listed by Unesco in 2004, after an ambitious regeneration following decades of decline in one of the cradles of Britain’s Industrial Revolution. However, since 2012 the agency has locked horns with UK officials over development. It had urged the city to limit building heights and reconsider the proposed new stadium for Everton at a derelict dock site, warning of “significant loss to its authenticity and integrity”. The waterfront is the site of a statue honouring the four members of The Beatles, the most famous cultural export from a city rich in musical history. Allan Ellis, a British tourist visiting the city, dismissed the decision by Unesco. “What’s important is the actual history of Liverpool,” he told AFP. “People don’t come here because it’s Unesco. They come here because it’s where The Beatles came from.”