LIVERPOOL: UNESCO UN Cultural Agency on Wednesday chose narrowly to remove the Liverpool seafront from the list of world heritage sites, quoting concerns about excessive development including plans for the new football stadium.
At the conversation committee chaired by China, 13 delegates chose to support proposals and five fight – only one more than the majority of two-thirds needed to remove the site from the global list.
“This means that the Liverpool Maritime City Liverpool site is removed from the List of World Heritage,” Tian Xuejun, Chair of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, was stated.
This is just the third elimination like that, after the previous decision affected Oman and Germany, and following two days of discussions of committees exposed to tensions about how cities around the world could preserve their past.
Mayor of Liverpool City Mayor Steve Rotheram called it “step back” taken by officials “on the other side of the world”.
“Places such as Liverpool should not be faced with binary options between maintaining inheritance status or regenerating the left community – and the wealth of work and opportunities that accompany it,” he said.
Liverpool City Council Cabinet Harry Doyle told AFP that he was “very disappointed with the results” but said the city’s heritage “is still here to stay”.
“We were even more disappointed that UNESCO refused our offer to come to the city and see the work that happened,” Doyle said.
“They have made this decision in isolation in the middle of the world.” The British government also expressed disappointment with the decision, said Liverpool “still deserves the status of his world’s inheritance”.
But the UNESCO delegation heard the rebuilding plan, including high-rise buildings, would “destroy” the port inheritance in the northwest of England.
The International Council on monuments and sites, which suggested UNESCO on the inheritance list, said the British government had “repeatedly asked” to come with a stronger guarantee about the future of the city.
The new stadium planned for the Everton Football Club is approved by the government without a public investigation, and “is the latest example of a large project that is truly contradictory” with the purpose of UNESCO, he said.
Some countries have supported Britain, agreed to be a “radical” step in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, and urged more time for the new city council chosen in May.
Corruption scandals related to regeneration funds have claimed the leadership of the old city, encouraging the national government to move temporarily before the local election in May.
Those who argue against Liverpool’s delisting including Australia, whose own list for Great Barrier Reef is threatened in this year’s UNESCO deliberation.
Norway instead said that while “realizing” the conflict between construction and inheritance conservation, “fine balance” is possible, which is lacking in Liverpool.
Waterfront and Liverpool pier were registered by UNESCO in 2004, after ambitious regeneration after decades decline in one of the British industrial revolution stands.
But since 2012 the agency has locked horns with British officials on development.
It urged the city to limit high-up and reconsider the new stadium proposed to Everton on the displaced series sites, warning “significant losses to authenticity and integrity”.
Waterfront is a statue site that respects four members of the Beatles, the most famous cultural exports of the city that is rich in music history.
Allan Ellis, a British tourist who visited the city, rejected the decision by UNESCO.
“The important thing is the real history of Liverpool,” he told AFP.
“People don’t come here because of UNESCO.
They come here because that’s where The Beatles come from.”