WHEN will the first shovel be stuck in the ground to herald the start of Liverpool Waters?
Next year, this decade, or in the 2020s? Who knows?
Supporters of the ambitious scheme will welcome the decision by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles not to order a public inquiry. But that hardly points to “all systems go”.
Many of the 20,000 jobs promised will go
to people not yet born, so far in the future
does the project span
It represents one more hurdle that has been crossed - more Water Jump than an ordinary fence, but there is still a Grand National course of jumps to navigate in the coming decades.
Mayor Joe Anderson should now be pulling out all the stops to get things moving.
After all, at every occasion the Mayor and his cabinet colleagues will be dancing like peacocks at the foot of the Liver Building, bigging up the £5bn-plus Peel proposals.
Just a few days ago, local media reported how a major regeneration scheme along the waterfront had hit a funding snag. Further along the Mersey there are the skeletal remains of abandoned or delayed projects.
Other major plans that received the thumbs up from city planners have disappeared without trace.
Liverpool Waters: Will you be around to see this?
People are bound to pose questions. Is there a demand in Liverpool for another 3m sq ft of office space, or the need for another 9,000 city centre apartments?
Many of the 20,000 jobs promised will go to people not yet born, so far in the future does the project span.
When politicians beg to the Government for more cash because of the wide-scale deprivation in Liverpool, they may well be told the city will soon be riding on the crest of a commercial wave and surely doesn’t need any Whitehall lolly.
All that has happened is Mr Pickles has said there’ll be no public inquiry.
That means the master plan for the waterfront site has a green light.
But individual building projects will need separate planning permissions, and there will be fireworks over some of those proposals for years to come - and not in a celebratory way.
Waiting and watching will be UNESCO, ready to strip Liverpool of its World Heritage Status should any individual project compromise the integrity of the WHS site. We are already on the “at risk” register, the equivalent of a cultural naughty step.
Will Liverpool Waters ever be started? If so, when? And what about a timetable so the public can gauge the likely progress of such a massive scheme?
When will the first of those 20,000 jobs become available?
Mayor Joe is right when he says Waters will transform a forgotten part of Liverpool’s historic dockland. It is currently closed off to the public and is rotting away behind that huge dock wall, already owned by Peel.
If and when hard plans materialise there will be the first of many judgement days.
Does Liverpool risk losing its WHS for the sake of investment or jobs. In the current climate the answer would be yes. But it would be better if the council and Peel added a third party to the discussions – UNESCO, to see if schemes can be devised that will meet regeneration dreams whilst retaining a much coveted title.
And while Peel will say the project has a lifespan of 30 years or more, it is the start date that will determine whether Liverpool’s waterfront dream will become a reality or not.
Now is the time for Mayor Joe and his civic team to roll up their sleeves and insist that it happens.
