Tag: Liverpool Council

IMPASSE ON LIVERPOOL’S HERITAGE STATUS?

 

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

There are rumours that the long running row between World Heritage chiefs and Liverpool Council is about to deepen, opening the way for the city to be stripped of its international status.

UNESCO officials placed the city’s spectacular water front on a danger list in 2012 claiming the massive Liverpool and Wirral Waters developments would overwhelm the historic buildings. In July a UNESCO summit conference called for a detailed report setting out exactly what changes needed to be made to the multi billion pound 30 year development plan. It requested a response from Liverpool Council, Peel Ports and English Heritage by December but sources suggest there could be developments much earlier.

This may be because it is becoming clearer than ever that there is an unbridgeable gap between Liverpool and Wirral councils’ determination to back this transformational scheme and UNESCO’s insistence that Liverpool Waters would cause “irreversible damage to the Outstanding Universal Value” of the site.

Liverpool Council has insisted it takes the status issue seriously pointing to its vital role in attracting tourists. Others have said UNESCO officials are being unrealistic about the development needs of a modern city and if the price of going ahead with the development of 60 hectares of land to the north of the city centre is the loss of the status, then so be it. They also point out that there is no threat to the World Heritage status of Tower Bridge in London close to the 87 storey Shard building.

In one way it will be strange if this row reignites in August because this has been a slow burner. Peel first revealed its plans in 2007 and despite being given the planning go ahead precious little progress has been made. Of course the great recession came soon after the scheme was launched, but some take the view that UNESCO would be better advised to ease back on the threats and wait to see what projects actually come forward for development.

70 YEARS AFTER HIROSHIMA.

Jeremy Corbyn continues to inspire Labour activists with his clear policies on issues that his rivals obfuscate about. One of them is his belief that the UK should unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons.

It is an issue that has split the Labour Party since the 1950s when we acquired the bomb seven years after the Americans exploded two devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I have visited memorial sites to the devastation caused in both cities. One cannot fail to be moved by the huge death toll and the lingering suffering. I also reflect on the forecast that it was very likely that the casualties from a conventional assault on Japan would have been much higher.

Nuclear weapons have contributed to 70 years of peace between the superpowers but the cold words, mutually assured destruction, bring little comfort.

We are more preoccupied these days with localised terrorism than intercontinental war. Let us hope the two never become fused together.

ANDREW JENNINGS: WORLD CUP HERO.

It’s always good to have celebrities at big football draws. FIFA excelled itself last weekend when Vladimir Putin and Sepp Blatter presided over the draw for the 2018 World Cup.

It will be one of Blatter’s last appearances on the global stage and that’s thanks in no small part to a journalist I first met in Manchester in the 1970s…Andrew Jennings. I’m sure he worked for the radical magazine New Manchester Review. He later took his investigative skills to Granada and then to the BBC’s Panorama.

Andrew toiled on the story of FIFA corruption when most journalists didn’t want to know. Well done Andrew.

 

THE TOWER OF LONDON

This historic building has been at the centre of my thoughts this week for two completely different reasons.

 

The discovery of the bones of Good King Richard is inevitably linked to the story of the Princes in the Tower. There is no proof Richard killed them by the way. Instead the king should be remembered for being a damn good governor of the North of England. We could do with him now. However I must remember this is principally a business blog in the present time.

 

Even with that in mind, the Tower of London loomed up this week because the Liverpool Embassy in London is located near the Tower. Liverpool in London, to give it its more correct title, is a project to give entrepreneurs from the city a base to work from and to signal a confident Liverpool open for business.

 

It opened its doors in Royal Mint Court two years ago and the original backers of the project could have been heading for the Tower if some of the critics had been proved right. A gimmick that won’t last would be a polite way of summing up the reaction of the sceptical.

 

In 2011 the inspiration for the idea came from Guy Wallis a senior partner in the Liverpool offices of the business law firm DWF. It was backed by our own Frank McKenna and Joe Anderson, the leader of Liverpool Council.

 

Two years on the project has generated £1m additional sales for Liverpool companies, and attracted £20m of new investment. Those are the hard figures but it is in the intangible networking opportunities that the project has justified its funding by the council and private sector. £58 pounds return for every £1 invested according to its backers

 

The ringmaster is Chris Hayes, the Liverpool in London manager. He arranges quarterly networking events, dinners and hundreds of one to one meetings between Liverpool business people and potential clients in London. You can use the facilities free for a day but Chris Hayes wants people to sign up to the business club thereafter.

 

The private sector have stepped up to a limited extent to back Liverpool in London but it is still a 70/30 split in favour of the city council. As we know the authority is facing mega financial pressures and it would be handy if more firms came on board. That said Mayor Joe Anderson was in upbeat mood when he spoke at a second anniversary event for the embassy this week.

 

He announced that funding was secure through the next two years and he hoped for a couple of years after that, but he wanted more people to use the facilities at Royal Mint Court. He sees Liverpool in London playing a vital part in getting over the good news about major capital projects happening in Liverpool and hinted that a major announcement was imminent on the £5.5bn Liverpool Waters project.

 

A number of Liverpool business people spoke of their practical experience of using the facility in the capital. John Porter of Crosby Associates told of his success in developing the mobile app used by the London Chamber of Commerce and said it was as a result of having a base in the capital.

 

Liverpool Vision are strong supporters of the project and their flamboyant CEO Max Steinberg says Liverpool in London will be crucial to the projection of next year’s International Festival of Business being held on both sides of the Mersey.

 

Our own Frank McKenna pleaded for more positive coverage of this and other projects in the local press which he claimed was sometimes sabotaging jobs coming to the city by its coverage.

 

The event ended with Guy Wallis reflecting on the success of his vision and hoping that Mayor Joe Anderson could meet Mayor Boris Johnson on Tower Bridge to mark the success of Liverpool in London. So come on Boris you owe us that.

 

 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

In the week when we are celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of Charles Dickens, I’m writing about two cities; not London and Paris but Manchester and Liverpool.

If you want to know the real issues facing business in Manchester city centre ask Pat Karney.

He’s the councillor responsible for the heart of the metropolis and everyone beats a path to his office.

At a major gathering of city centre employers this week, Cllr Karney gave them an insight into the diverse range of problems that came across his desk in just one morning. In addition to the uproar over charging for Sunday parking, one shop keeper came to complain about human excrement outside the Hidden Gem church and representatives of the gay community objected to a club being turned into a budget hotel.

Despite these minor inconveniences, Manchester seems to be surviving the recession very well. Indeed council leader Sir Richard Leese suggested that the city centre could accommodate a thousand new residential units a year for the next decade. There is 96% occupancy of the existing provision. Leese claimed that Manchester employment had returned to pre recession levels.

Leese does not want the city to vote for an elected mayor, he prefers the Combined Authority model that has been in place for nearly a year now. All the local authorities in Greater Manchester are working together to drive an impressive range of projects.

There’s the enterprise zone at Manchester Airport where the infrastructure for a major retail, leisure and warehousing scheme will be in place by next year. In addition there’s MediaCity and the Sharp Project in east Manchester for budding media businesses. So successful has the latter been that Sharp 2 is planned. Nearby Manchester City football club is developing the Etihad Project.

At Manchester University a government backed plan is underway to capitalise on the discovery of graphine (very thin and very strong). Are we going to make some money for once out of a product developed in Britain?

Salford’s soon to be elected mayor will inherit a city still struggling with some big social problems but with a number of infrastructure schemes including the Chapel Street gateway and a plan to open up a riverside route from MediaCity up to Salford University.

Meanwhile Liverpool Council took the formal decision to go for an elected mayor. Liberal Democrat opposition to scrapping the planned referendum was half hearted and the debate did not match some that I have witnessed in the historic council chamber.
Council leader Joe Anderson had the wind in his sails having just signed off the £130m deal with the government that he insists was only possible because the city was going to have an elected mayor.

One felt the politicians already had their eye on who was going to stand. Joe Anderson will clearly be Labour’s candidate. He might face ex leader and Lib Dem peer Mike Storey. The suggestion was certainly not denied by a senior party source. If Storey can’t be lured from the best club in London, then Cllr Richard Kemp might consider standing.

The Liberals will field Cllr Steve Radford who gave his support to the new post on Tuesday night, and there is likely to be a Conservative candidate.

But the campaign will be enlivened by independents. There are two at the moment and they make an unlikely couple. There’s former broadcaster Liam Fogarty who has campaigned for the last 10 years for an elected mayor. A clever man of substance, he cares passionately about his city. It will be fascinating to see how he stands up to the robust style of bruiser Anderson.

Then there’s celebrity hairstylist Herbert Howe who has promised to take no salary and to be independent of all party factions.

Before you dismiss his chances remember that Robocop got elected in Middlesbrough. H’Angus the Monkey won in Hartlepool and an English Democrat became mayor of Doncaster.

MAYORAL MAELSTROM

Liverpool Council will vote on Tuesday to deny the people a vote on whether they want an elected mayor.

Council leader Joe Anderson justifies this on the grounds that he can beat other cities to a package of powers and cash while they go through time wasting referendums. He had better be right.

The low turn out in Salford’s mayoral referendum last week (albeit with a yes vote) shows that this issue excites politicians and journalists far more than ordinary people.

A referendum could have been held in Liverpool if activists could have got just 5% of the citizenry to support it. They failed.

The document that Liverpool’s Chief Executive is putting before the council next week is instructive. It refers to the “proposed” deal with the government. Nothing is signed off yet. What happens if the deal collapses? Do we revert to a referendum? Chaos!

It concedes that “this package is not directly contingent upon an elected mayor.” It refers to the “inherent uncertainty” in not moving quickly without giving any evidence that the government is set to give fewer powers and cash to the 10 cities which are allowing their voters a say on whether they want this controversial post or not.

Actually I have never been a fan of referenda. The previous Labour government should have created an elected North West Assembly if it truly believed in democratic regional government. Instead it promised a referendum and then withdrew it.

In Liverpool’s case, the city was four months away from a promised referendum on the elected mayor issue and Joe Anderson risks giving the impression that this is a power grab to wrong foot other potential candidates.

He’s done a good job in his two years leading the city and will almost certainly win, but when he told a local paper this week “the electorate will have their chance to say yes or no” on May 3 that is manifest nonsense. The option to reject an elected mayor is not on offer.

Joe Anderson is not the only council leader plunged in controversy over elected mayors. Ahead of the Salford vote in favour, Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester City Council, told Granada TV such a result “could be a real obstacle” to the Combined Authority which runs Greater Manchester.

Yet speaking at the launch of Downtown’s Manchester Business Survey last Friday he felt there would not be a problem.

One feels his first reaction may be right particularly if Hazel Blears decides to quit parliament and stand. The Salford MP is used to “rocking the boat”.

At the moment Leese is campaigning for a no vote in May’s referendum in Manchester, although there’s still time for the government to seduce him with a package of goodies.

If Manchester votes no and Hazel looms up on the Combined Authority with a public mandate from Salford as elected mayor, it will have a potentially destabilising effect. Remember the rude things she said about Manchester when the parliamentary boundary commission proposed wiping her city off the map? She reminded us Manchester was a tiny village while Salford was already thriving in medieval times.

Leese must hope that Salford’s low profile council leader John Merry wins. Merry was opposed to an elected mayor but says he will now stand.