This is a much better article by the Echo.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/everton-fc-unesco-bramley-moore-12823416
Everton FC, UNESCO and Bramley Moore Dock - you can't stand in the way of progress (and why would you want to?)
"Everton’s Holy Trinity and Liverpool’s five golden stars deserve a place alongside the Fab Four in any discussion of the city's heritage."
This seems like as good a week as any to write about the past, and how it’s not always as great as it’s cracked up to be, and how it can be comforting to cling on to the past but if we do so for too long it can weigh us down and prevent us from enjoying the present and future.
I’m referring, of course, to the “threat” posed to Liverpool’s World Heritage Site status by Everton’s plans to build a shiny new stadium on Bramley Moore Dock. Why, what else has happened this week?
The scare quotes around “threat” are there for a reason; because there really is nothing to feel threatened about.
For starters, heritage status is a pleasant selling point but not the ultimate aim for a living, breathing, growing city like this. Liverpool is not Stonehenge or the Tower Of London – it’s a tourist attraction but not just a tourist attraction.
Secondly, there’s something rose-tinted about the way UNESCO looks at the history of the docks, which are the key to the city’s status. It’s all very well hailing the “innovative technologies and methods in dock construction” – what is somewhat glossed over in the city’s citation is what (or rather, who) the docks were made for transporting so efficiently. The slave trade is a shameful part of Britain’s history and shouldn’t be airbrushed out – at the same time, it’s nothing to be celebrated, or preserved for preservation’s sake.
Thirdly, when it comes to cultural value, football is a massive part of this city. UNESCO mentions the Beatles in its sole nod to the modern age, but Everton’s Holy Trinity and Liverpool’s five golden stars deserve a place alongside the Fab Four in any discussion of our heritage. A football stadium given pride of place on the waterfront would enhance, not detract from, the city’s charm.
If UNESCO fails to recognise this – or if, as it suggested in 2012 when it put the city on its “at risk” list, the Liverpool Waters development as a whole is enough to cost the city its status – then so be it.
The docks and the Liver Building and St George’s Hall and all our other beautiful old buildings wouldn’t become any less beautiful. Tourists would still flock to the Tate and the Beatles Story. And the Slavery Museum.
This is a city with a past to be both proud and ashamed of, but it must look to the future. Making new memories doesn’t have to mean sacrificing the glories – and the lessons – of the old ones.
1st comment is fantastic stuff.
1 hour ago
Canninglad
This is an appalling article by an ignorant pseudo journalist. There is nothing shiny about a football stadium within these historic docks. It's the wrong thing in the wrong place . It will be a blot on the landscape. The product of Peel's desperation for cash shown by their so far empty and unfulfilled promises. And a shady backroom deal brokered by Captain Anderson from his Cunard palace. Municipal Buildings not being palatial enough....