The Taj Mahal, the Galapagos, the Great Barrier Reef…but why not Manchester?

A few years ago, on a bright hot summer’s day, the reputation of a “once great” major city in the northwest of England was “in the bin”. At least that’s what one Guardian architecture and design critic wrote, on the day Liverpool was stripped of World Heritage Status. The city’s Liberal Democrat leader called it the city’s “day of shame” and raised concerns over tourism losses, while its Labour council leader Joanne Anderson said the decision was “incomprehensible”. 

I have spent the last year working on a strategy for Liverpool’s waterfront which is magnificent, World Heritage Status or not. But the understandable reaction of Liverpudlians on that fateful day in July 2021 demonstrates the power that the World Heritage Committee continues to hold over cities. After Anderson originally touted the possibility of appealing the decision, the city instead deployed a hashtag (#nolabels) essentially saying that they weren’t bovvered. But the anger of the response was understandable, a listing means sharing status with the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China, with the Galapagos Islands where Darwin studied finches and iguanas and the Acropolis of Athenes, where the Ancient Greeks stored treasure and worshipped Athena. 

Down the M62, Manchester’s own leaders were feeling validated because, in the early noughties, as Liverpool had been campaigning to win the usually coveted status, our city had been doing something quite unusual: campaigning against it.