THE pro vice chancellor of Liverpool University today spoke out against the city council, accusing it of placing profit above the city’s historic heritage.
Leading history academic and author Professor John Belchem, who was one of the leading lights in the city's bid to win its Unesco World Heritage Site crown, launched his stinging rebuke in today’s Architects Journal.
He rounds on the Neptune plan for Lime Street, describing it as a "crass development". And he warns of the "dreadful embarrassment" for the city should it be stripped of its coveted World Heritage status.
UNESCO has already placed the city on the "at risk" register.
In an article penned for the architects' bible, titled Redevelopment and conservation have been polarised in Liverpool, Prof Belchem launches an onslaught on the Lime Street scheme which will see the Futurist and several other buildings demolished to make way for "yet more" student flats.
Liverpool's World Heritage Site status, which he describes as the real prize asset for sustainable visitor attraction, cultural tourism and urban regeneration, has been put at risk by lack of concern and poor planning, he says, "the latest instance being the current proposals for the eastern side of Lime Street".
London heritage campaigners SAVE are currently seeking to challenge the grant of planning permission for Lime Street in the Court of Appeal. They are supported by the Victorian Society, Merseyside Civic Society and other concerned groups and individuals.
“It is a test case of vital importance: should the crass development proceed, Liverpool could well suffer the dreadful embarrassment of being stripped of its World Heritage Status,” writes Prof Belchem.
“While John Whittingdale, the Secretary of State, might be alarmed by the loss of such an accolade for the United Kingdom, planners and the city authorities appear insouciant, placing profit above any concern for design and heritage, lucrative Beatles commemoration apart,” he comments
“For too long, redevelopment and conservation have been polarised in debate in Liverpool as if they were mutually exclusive. A new vision for Lime Street fusing the best of the old and the contemporary, the ‘futurist’ way forward, would help Liverpool retain its distinctive character and World Heritage status.”
In their place there will be yet more student accommodation - when will the bubble burst? - built at a height which...shows complete disregard for sight lines across to and within the World Heritage Site
Belchem writes that where the priority in most other World Heritage Sites has been tourist control and planning restriction to protect and preserve antique assets, the Liverpool case for inscription was markedly different but no less compelling.
"The remarkable architectural legacy of what was ‘the supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global influence’ was to serve as catalyst to promote regeneration, cultural tourism and sympathetic development throughout the Maritime Mercantile City."
He says the large buffer zone is aimed at ensurin the "outstanding universal value" of the site is protected and enhanced to the benefit of "the overall townscape character of Liverpool".
Prof Belchem goes on: “The management plan envisaged a major refurbishment of Lime Street - or rather the section between the railway station and the Grade I listed St George’s Hall - to serve as a high quality gateway into the ‘international class attractions’ of the World Heritage Site."
“There has been some progress here with the demolition of an unattractive office block and attendant shopping concourse and the redesign of the station frontage.
“Fortunately the two magnificent Edwardian public houses at either end of the eastern side of the street, the Crown Hotel and the Vines, veritable gin palaces, are to remain. The buildings in-between, left under-repaired and decaying for decades, are to be demolished, including the much loved Futurist Cinema, the city’s first purpose built picture house, designed by Chadwick and Watson, with its distinctive faience façade.
“In their place there will be yet more student accommodation - when will the bubble burst? - built at a height which, as with other several other recent developments, shows complete disregard for sight lines across to and within the World Heritage Site. Underneath the monolithic block of student accommodation [designed by Broadway Malyan] will be some bland shopping units hardly befitting such an important gateway street.”
Jonathan Brown from Merseyside Civic Society said: “Professor Belchem is not known for speaking out on planning issues so when he warns the Secretary of State Mr Whittingdale that Lime Street's 'crass development' risks deletion of a UK World Heritage Site by UNESCO and condemns authorities for putting profit above design and heritage, it carries weight.”
