IT OFTEN falls to me to play the role of the cheeky little boy who in the famous fable told the truth about the Emperor’s clothes – namely that he wasn’t wearing any.
Something of that feeling came over me today as I passed through central Liverpool and glanced up at the ugly new shopping centre that is spreading its protuberances outwards and upwards from Paradise Street.
Some commonsense observations from me on this one…
The Paradise Project, or ‘Liverpool One’ (or whatever silly name and/or logo the developers and publicists have given it) ain’t going to work.
As a retail centre, the Albert Dock hasn’t worked and neither will this new temple of consumer addiction.
The Paradise Project is far too big for Liverpool, which has suffered massive depopulation down the recent decades and hasn’t enough people with the spare cash to sustain a great big swanky (yawn, yawn!) shopping centre.
Oh, I know that the idea is for the new ‘Liverpool One’ to act as a sort of bridge to the Albert Dock and so spread prosperity across a big swathe of the city centre, but anyone with any sense can see that’s not going to happen.
First up, the irresistible trend in western nations is for people to do their shopping online, rather than in dreary shopping malls (they all look identical, anyway, wherever you are).
I sense that people are also totally jaded by the same old shops you see spreading like a rash across Britain.
And I’m sure people are fast getting fed up with being served by surly, pimply, adolescent shop assistants who are paid peanuts and hardly know anything about what the goods they sell.
Also, there is increased environmental awareness now that the retail chains who like to tenant shopping centres, get their products knocked up on the cheap in Third World sweatshops, where workers are exploited and then sell stuff on to us at inflated prices.
To say this is not to do Liverpool down. Liverpool should dare to be different and encourage small private traders rather than the multiples.
Then it might be able to offer something unique and distinctly non-corporate, which is far more in keeping with the essential spirit of Liverpool.
The two big, mainstream shopping malls already established Liverpool city centre, St John’s and Clayton Square, are not exactly appealing. It would have been better to revamp them than waste money on the Paradise Project.
Ditto the city centre’s indoor market. It looks tired, small and bedraggled, compared to the bustling market hall in downtown Birkenhead.
And talking of improvements, something should be done to add a bit of sparkle to St John’s Tower. How about copper panels all the way up to the top? I saw that done to an ugly concrete monstrosity in Norwich city centre years ago – and the transformation was startling.
As for the Met Quarter, it’s strictly for poseurs, and there aren’t enough of them in Liverpool to sustain it in the long term.
The Met Quarter projects a very naïve and provincial approach to style and design - based on body fascism and the dodgy posing of vacuous models. Do lively spirited, maverick-soulled Scousers really want to buy into all that crap?
Talking of population size and wealth, we all know that Liverpool has a way to go yet to get into the major league of Britain’s resurgent cities.
Only the other day a survey was published which showed Liverpool is lagging behind the rest of England, despite the squandering of billions of pounds on so-called improvements.
Liverpool came bottom in a league table of 56 of the country’s major towns and cities.
But you don’t need a survey or a think tank report to know there is still a big shortage of genuine job vacancies in this city region.
A quick glance at recruitment ads will tell you that virtually the only available employment is in the public sector – i.e. pretend jobs with councils, care service providers and quangos.
Of course, lots of people in Liverpool pretend that everything in Liverpool’s regeneration garden is rosy. But I won’t do that. I have too much respect for the city and, actually, it is not helpful.
Here is the truth. Despite Capital of Culture status (and that’s been badly mishandled by the political pygmies who run the city council), other regional cities are regenerating much faster than Liverpool.
Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne and Birmingham are all doing better. Much better.
What can we do to change that? Well, hopefully, I’ve done my little bit … by starting a much needed debate.
WELL, now we know, because we’ve seen it on telly, that Madonna can play guitar (sort of) as well as dance saucily, sing pop songs in a weak, reedy voice, write children’s books, and swear like a stevedore on live TV.
‘Goodness gracious, Madonna,’ as Clive Anderson once said of Jeffrey Archer, ‘is there no beginning to your talents?’
To be fair to Madge, her headlining set was one of the best at the Live Earth gig at Wembley – but that’s not saying much.
What was David Gray thinking of, singing “Que Sera Sera�? It’s hardly the sort of anthem that would inspire anyone to take radical action to save the world.
James Blunt did a set, apparently, but thankfully I missed that. Frankly, I would rather gnaw my own hands off than listen to him sing.
And I really don’t want to be lectured by a bunch of fluff-heads such as The Pussycat Dolls about complex eco-economic affairs either.
These lasses had obviously been given a load of moronic cue cards to memorize to keep them on-message.
As for Terence Stamp, what did he hope to achieve by strolling on stage, dressed like a geography teacher and droning on for so long about the environment?
He brought the mood right down after Madge had done her best, bless her, to raunch it all up for us.
Live Earth and all the other consciousness-raising gigs we’ve had to endure are sooooo politically naive.
No such event can ever achieve anything. Why? Doh!
Because they’re just pop concerts – and no form of human activity is more trivial than a pop concert.
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Wallasey Dave wrote...
Good debate material as always Steve.
I think there is a real issue about there being too much focus on huge, americanised retail 'malls'. The inevitable consequence of the Paradise Project is that the centre of retail gravity will be dragged even further away from places like London Road and Renshaw Street, where shops with a little individuality and character are already struggling to survive through lack of passing trade.
At the same time we have to be realistic about some areas that will never survive the retail dominance of the major chains. I drive to work down King Street in Wallasey every day and see retailers clearly struggling to survive on meagre passing trade, with large numbers of boarded up shops that will never open again. Don't we need to bite the bullet with some 'shopping areas' and convert shops into houses and flats?
I dont't think anyone doubts we need more of those!
REGAN REPLIES: Tel you what Dave, King Street and all that main drag through Seacombe and Egremont is a disaster area. And it is all right on the doorstep of Wirral Council's "Deathy Star" HQ at the old Wallasey Town Hall - a daily reminder how completely useless Wirral Council is at urban regneration.
Posted by: Wallasey Dave | July 11, 2007 5:49 PM