Liverpool owes a ‘debt of gratitude’ to agency for renaissance of city centre

Mar 28 2008 by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL Vision’s contribution to how the city “sees itself, sells itself and runs itself” is one of the overriding reasons for the city centre’s “renaissance”, according to a report published yesterday .

Professor Michael Parkinson’s report says the city owes a “debt of gratitude” to the urban regen-eration agency for its work on turning round the city centre.

Make No Small Plans chronicles the impact the agency has had since its inception in 1999.

At the launch, Prof Parkinson, who is director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores University, said he had “staked his reputation” when he accepted the job of assessing Vision’s eight years of work. But he insisted his conclusions reflect the evidence.

Prof Parkinson wrote in the report: “It became clear to me very quickly there is common agreement that Liverpool Vision has been a real driving force behind it. It is unusual to find such consensus in any city about the part played by any particular body – unless it is bad news.

“But the extraordinary thing is that so many people from differ-ent parts of the Liverpool scene agree on the contribution that Liverpool Vision has made.

“It was not perfect. The job isn’t finished. But Vision has made a huge contribution to the successes of Liverpool in the last 10 years.”

The revived city centre is the economic powerhouse of the region, housing 50% of Liver-pool’s jobs and providing 50% of the city’s economic contribution or gross value added [GVA]. It is also enjoying job growth that, at 16.3%, outstrips the national average of 4.4%. And the popula-tion is booming – up 32% between 2000 and 2005, while the British figure rose by 1.9% and Merseyside’s total dipped by 1%.

Prof Parkinson detailed changes “on the ground in Liverpool city centre”. But he said: “As – if not more – important is the contribu-tion that Liverpool Vision has made to the way Liverpool sees itself, sells itself and runs itself. The changes in spirit and mood, although less tangible, are critical. The city is more ambi-tious, more confident, more market oriented. The private sector sees Liverpool as a place to invest and make money. It is deve-loping a record of delivery – of being a ‘can do’ rather than a ‘can’t do’ place.”

One of its key strengths is its ability to forge lucrative partner-ships in the private sector. It has overseen £589.5m spent in the city.

Vision is being wound up ahead of the launch of a new Liverpool Vision that will take on the old portfolio as well as work done by Liverpool Land Development Company and Business Liverpool.

Yesterday, it was revealed Prof Parkinson had come across top-level anticipation about how the new super-quango will be run.

A senior source at Vision said there are concerns about Liverpool City Council having too much control over the new body. Whereas the old Vision is a private company with no share-holders, the new vision will have three shareholders.

The North West Development Agency, English Partnerships and the city council each have shares, with the council holding the most.

It is possible, the source added, that councillors will interfere in the new body and disrupt a successful formula. With almost 90 elected members, the council was a potentially unpredictable shareholder.

Prof Parkinson highlighted three projects on which Vision failed to deliver or make signi-ficant progress. They are the proposed Everton stadium on the waterfront, the Fourth Grace and the improvements to the Lime Street gateway.

He wrote: “Liverpool Vision has achieved many things. But noth-ing is perfect. In the case of the Football Club all partners should have realised earlier the money was not really available and the technical traffic problems were probably too great.

“In the case of the Fourth Grace the key question about the function of the building should have been discussed more before considerations of its form, the public consultation could have been handled differently as should have been the announcement of the scheme’s demise.

“In the case of Lime Street, with hindsight partners agreed that Liverpool Vision might have push-ed on more quickly with the com-pulsory purchase order and run the development differently.”

But in mitigation, Prof Parkin-son added it would have been unrealistic to expect all projects to succeed and the Lime Street work will be delivered in 2009.

Then and now, what the key people said > > >