The World Heritage Status bade that was bestowed upon Liverpool by Unesco in 2004 is apparently under threat once again.

Should Peel’s proposals for the Liverpool Waters regeneration project go ahead then the heritage lobby will demand that the city is stripped of the title.  

Whatever your views on ‘heritage’, and I have made mine known on many occasions over the years, any pragmatic observer of the current situation will know that Liverpool needs jobs and investment more than it needs a rather meaningless vanity badge.

Yes, it is a nice marketing tick in the box that arguably helps in some small way with our tourism and visitor destination agenda. The value of this, however, nowhere near matches the benefits of the potential regeneration projects planned will bring.

People also need to be reminded that it is not just the waterfront that is affected by World Heritage Status. Developments as far away as Duke Street have been scaled back, as a large chunk of the city is included in the so-called ‘buffer zone’.    

Nobody likes to lose titles, and Liverpool should do what it can within reason to keep Unesco on board. Perhaps what is required is a conversation about the nature of the existing agreement and reducing the influence of World Heritage Status to simply cover the site of the three graces. If a compromise can be met, that would be great, but my experience of the heritage lobby is that they are extreme and immovable. Their politics, much like their views, are from a time gone by, when only people who took polar opposites on issues were considered ‘pure’ enough to articulate an opinion.    

Ultimately, if Unesco insist on applying the current criteria in order for Liverpool to retain its vanity badge, then the city would be better served handing the title back graciously, rather than wait for it to be taken away from us.

I must confess that I greeted the news that  Unesco and its World Heritage Committee (yawn) were to review Liverpool’s World Heritage Status with some glee.

The badge, from what I can tell, has brought little if any benefit to the city, and has most certainly cost Liverpool in terms of jobs, growth and investment.

You may think, as many do, that the World Heritage Site applies only to the waterfront. You would be mistaken. The WHS also has what is known as a buffer zone attached to it, and developments as far away as the Ropewalks area of the city have been impacted upon because of this vanity badge.

Liverpool’s Three Graces are rightly recognised as architectural wonders, and would be a beautiful addition to any landscape. However, though it is important that we celebrate the past, it is even more critical that we don’t live in it.

A fine modern museum has been added to the cultural waterfront offer. Peel have plans to invest billions of pounds regenerating dockland that has been left derelict for decades. And a city that has been over reliant on public subsidy for far too long is desperate to create an enterprise zone that does what it says on the tin!

If losing World Heritage Status is the price that has to be paid to meet those objectives, so be it. For me, the status has simply acted as a barrier to regeneration, given an already over-powerful heritage lobby a nuclear button to press when it suited them, and sent potential investors dashing towards alternative opportunities.

The argument that this Unesco tag has boosted our tourism offer just doesn’t, forgive the pun, hold water. Liverpool’s waterfront was famous long before Unesco was even heard of. The Beatles, football and the Capital of Culture year are what have driven Liverpool as a destination city. Be honest, have you ever heard any visitor to Liverpool say they are in town because of Unesco?

World Heritage Status is a nice claim to fame – but economically and culturally it’s as useful as a chocolate tea pot.