3,500 new workers is great. But exactly why does India Buildings have to close to the public?

The good news is the taxman is bringing 3,500 people to Liverpool’s Water Street. The bad news is it will mean closing to the public one of the city’s most breathtaking interiors.

HMRC has taken a 25 year lease on the India Buildings to turn it into one of their 13 super regional centres.  But unless there is a change of heart, Holt’s Arcade, the prized shopping walkway through the building, will be lost from general gaze for good.

It seems HMRC want to close it for security reasons, but surely there must be a way of keeping this stunning arcade in use without compromising the security of the building.
After all for many years the passport office occupied several floors of India Buildings without a problem?

Manchester and Leeds are two cities that celebrate and protect their grand arcades

The arrival of 3,500 civil servants, coupled with the hotels and restaurants that have breathed much need life into this part of town, could spell a thriving future for the arcade. It could be a shopping street for the tax officers working on the floors above.

Yet you get the nagging feeling that the city council won’t stand up to the might of the HMRC and tell them the walkway must remain open to the public as a condition of granting planning permission. Manchester and Leeds are two cities that celebrate and protect their grand arcades.

According to long time occupant, antique dealer Wayne Colquhoun, the arcade has always been a public right of way at least during daytime hours.

“It is called India Buildings because the arcade was vaulted over Chorley Street. Effectively is has always been a right of way during business hours, which has worked very well.”

In 2011 Colquhoun led a campaign, when the arcade faced a closure threat, and that resulted in the building’s official listing being upgraded, including the arcade shop frontages and the arcade itself. It was given Grade II star listing to reflect the importance of the arcade and the shop frontages.

HMRC is seemingly looking at how it can give other people the chance to “experience this amazing space and will be working with the council on an appropriate solution". 

Does that mean it will just become a mothballed relic of Liverpool in its heyday, to be opened now and then in a strictly controlled way to allow people to have a sneak view of what used to be. This is, after all, the last public arcade in Liverpool.

The 20 Century Society has announced it will oppose the plans to close the arcade. Tess Pinto, conservation adviser for the society described India Buildings as one of the finest inter-war buildings in the country, with the shopping arcade its centrepiece. Its closure would be unacceptable, said Pinto.

"It is a great shame that a government body will be curtailing public access to this stunning space, as well as destroying a lot of the surviving fabric on the upper floors."

Built in the 1930s as a new headquarter building for the Alfred Holt & Co shipping line, it is regarded as one of the finest works of the celebrated architect Herbert J Rowse.