You know, Tesco isn’t all bad. Well, OK it is – but a new Tesco store isn’t the end of the world.
However, a new Tesco store on Hope Street – slap bang in the middle of the ‘cultural quarter’, connecting two astonishing cathedrals, host to the iconic Philharmonic Hall, Everyman Theatre and Philharmonic pub and blessed with its own street festival – is a bloody awful prospect.
Announced at a time when the city council has somehow allowed a developer to destroy Josephine Butler House, the prospect of another sodding Tesco store blighting the otherwise-stunning thoroughfare is a depressing one.
If you follow the view of the blogosphere, the Mann Island developments buildings, together with the new Merseytravel ferry terminal building (that also doubles as the Beatles Story’s second outlet) and Liverpool Museum, amount to nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Indeed, that’s what architects seem to think too.
Such judgements are necessarily subjective, and though I’m reserving judgement for now on the new Liverpool Museum, I can’t possibly see how the Mann Island Developments buildings or new ferry terminal can be judged to be sympathetic to the surrounding area.
In some ways I quite like the Mann Island buildings, but they seem to me totally at odds with the surrounding areas, as if two damaged Borg cubes have suddenly crashed down to Earth on the site of the ill-fated Fourth Grace.
The buildings, along with the museum, almost completely obscure the view of the Three Graces from the viewpoint of the Albert Dock, and add an intrusive full stop to the waterfront’s narrative from Birkenhead.
The Merseytram project to build a tram route from Liverpool city centre to Kirkby, of all places, is back in the new with Shadow Home Secretary and ‘Minister for Merseyside’ Chris Grayling apparently ruling out the possibility of a Tory government backing the plans.
Grayling, who once claimed that Gary Neville was a good role model for Liverpool youngsters, says that a tram network in the city would need to be based on a successful initial route – saying a South Liverpool route through the suburbs to John Lennon airport would make more sense.
The persistently-favoured first route is the Line One Kirkby route, which seems to amount to an FDR-style social engineering project.
The Tories have made a big thing under Dave Cameron of pretending to be interested in the environment, and Grayling has spent the last couple of years slamming Labour for not pressing ahead with Liverpool’s tram network, while saying the Tories would build trams, ooh, everywhere.
Grayling has probably had a look at the public finances, and at the rubbish plans for Liverpool’s trams network and decided that not backing the plans was probably a good idea on Alistair Darling’s part.
There’s an interesting blog on the Daily Post’s website by Peter Elson concerning a book by Anna Minton that looks at the built environment in the UK, taking in a look at Liverpool One and its effects in Liverpool.
GROUND Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty First Century investigates ownership of various projects around the city, most notably the mass demolition of houses down Edge Lane and Liverpool One.
These projects are funded and owned by private money and the potential ramifications of leaving town planning to people for whom the bottom line is the, er, bottom line.
There are clear pros and cons to these huge investments of private cash into the city, but the clear danger is in building estates that pander to commercial needs, rather than the needs of society.
Liverpool – or rather the organisations responsible for branding the city – is/are getting it in the neck again, this time from the business community.
Liverpool is “‘not credible as a place to locate knowledge economy businesses”, according to LDP Business, paraphrasing a report by the outgoing chief executive of Liverpool Science Park, Dr Sarah Tasker.
Dr Tasker – who is apparently like a ‘dyed-in-the-wool native’, albeit one who lives in Cambridge – says that Liverpool is known primarily for culture, football and The Beatles.
Tasker makes the point that while Liverpool’s cultural branding successfully conveys all the fun stuff, it’s not attracting any wider interest. This is due to its failure to brand itself as a knowledge economy destination.
However, the Mersey Partnership says that Liverpool is doing better than the national average for employing those in the knowledge economy.
So, this is a problem of branding, again, if you listen to Dr Tasker. Following Liverpool’s various branding disaster of its logo and slogan, the people responsible for marketing the city must be close to jacking it in.
I’d suggest that Liverpool watchers should start turning their eyes toward the hallowed gates of Liverpool One over the next few weeks.
It’s the time of the year when commercial rents are due and bets are being taken on which high-street names are likely to go to the big white-washed window in the sky.
For some reason that escapes me, commercial landlords collect payments at quarterly intervals, meaning colossal outgoing for tenants every three months.
Pair that to poor trading conditions, and the fact that the post-Christmas lull is a traditionally-slow one, and you’re going to get casualties.
Red alert then? Actually yes, but only because the entire world economy has gone to the dogs. If Liverpool is fucked, then so is everywhere else.