Who cares about UNESCO? We tell them what we're doing, they tell Liverpool they'll lose their status, we do what we want, UNESCO remove WHS. Whats the biggie? Joe said himself in public that he can't prevent funding on this scale cause of a status that really doesn't add anything to Liverpool past Bureaucracy.
Plus filling it in, will be costly yes, but no more costly that the filling in of the Liverpool 2 ports and there will be silt and material there that can be dredged for use as a proportion of infill.
Not that any of this matters anymore of course.