Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
With the greatest of respect city ‘centres’ move all the time. I’m an ex-pat and know more about Newcastle than Liverpool but I can point you in the direction of at least 3 historic centres in Newcastle. Bridge building, road building and I daresay cruise terminal building change the flow of people and business all the time. In. Most city centres the footfall goes to the newest development.
Yes, it is possible to shift focus but
the south docks have already been redeveloped, there was no major shift in centre of gravity when it was completed new infrastructurewas confined to Brunswick station which was happening regardless. Most of the developments in the north docks are just CGI soundbites. For 10 streets development in the North end there is the larger Baltic triangle in the south end that is already well underway. The focus will always revolve around the traditional centre: Liverpool One, the main transport hubs and the existing business centre, largest collection of civic architecture and Universities which will always employ the greatest numbers. At no point will BMD be at the centre of that. It will always be at the end of the waterfront development with by far the richest commercial development taking place on the more central docks. Where the high rises are going.... not BMD were relatively low level residential/commercial/leisure was planned. It would be just as easy to conclude that we've been given the cheap end site to bookend their whole development. Peel certainly weren't interested over 10yrs ago when they were approached by KEIOC...