Matt Johnson: Liverpool One will soon show its economic potential

Mar 5 2008 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

ANOTHER countdown clock is running towards one more of our city's momentous milestones – the opening of Liverpool One.

There's a discernible sense of anticipation about this.

Sure, we have seen new shops; new restaurants and new bars (a-plenty) open in Liverpool in the last couple of years.

But we have not seen anything on this scale – a scale that really is big enough to make a massive difference to pretty well every aspect of the city centre.

The vast majority of Liverpool One's potential customers have yet to set foot in the area once bounded by such Liverpool landmarks as the Moat House Hotel, The Paradise Street Bus Station and enough wasteland to make half a dozen car parks.

Behind the hoardings and beneath the cranes, a new city quarter is nearing completion.

At the development’s exhibit- ion centre in Lord Street, and at its new website (www.liverpool-one.com) a major effort is under way to recruit the retail sector workers who will replace the builders once their job is done.

And that's where we will see the real economic impact of this development – in providing new employment opportunities in a new and appealing environment.

Traders elsewhere in the city are reportedly viewing the prospects with a degree of unease. For the independents, it may appear as though a fleet of tanks has been driven down their high street and a battle is about to commence.

Some concern is understandable. But there are opportunities, too. Liverpool One will attract extra visitors to the city centre. For the independents, this means the potential for higher footfall.

Liverpool One is no out-of-town draw like Meadowhall ,in Sheffield, the Metro Centre, in Gateshead, or the Trafford Centre you know where.

This development is unmistakably part of the city centre. And that's a big advantage for anyone doing business in the heart of Liverpool.

As the finishing touches are being put to the units due to form part of the Phase One opening, the rest of our city centre is also emerging from the disruptive years of the Big Dig.

The planners, and the partners funding the digging of so many holes and the laying of so many pavements, may prefer to call this by its grand title the City Centre Movement Strategy.

But for those inconvenienced by it day after day, it remains, as the Big Dig.

There may not be much glamorous about paving stones and street furniture, but the quality – and scale – of this regeneration work gives the city centre a feel and appearance missing for way too long. And that itself generates even more of a feel good factor among those choosing to invest in the city.

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group