Lord Heseltine calls for more devolution in Liverpool

The city’s future depends on the increased power of its mayoral authority and the education of its young people, stated the former deputy prime minister at a roundtable discussion hosted by Grosvenor to mark 15 years of its Liverpool ONE retail and leisure development.

While the Liverpool ONE anniversary was the reason for the Wednesday roundtable, its focus was on how Liverpool “got its beat back” over 40 years of change.

On the panel was Grosvenor chief executive Mark Preston, Liverpool City Council’s director of culture Claire McColgan, and partner at Deloitte Zoe Davidson, along with Lord Heseltine.

Dubbed minister of Merseyside, Heseltine worked under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government. He is famed for using his political powers to block the demolition of the Albert Dock back in 1979, kickstarting the regeneration of Liverpool.

On Wednesday, Heseltine urged central government to give more money to Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, pointing out that the trick to regeneration is developer incentives.

“The mayoral authority brings the focus on one person for the whole community”, he stated.

“If you give them powers and money, that means everyone has an incentive to come and find out how you can share in those opportunities.”

Meanwhile, universities also have a massive role to play in regeneration and Heseltine emphasised that one of the biggest challenges of devolution is education.

“The people who are going to create the jobs, who know the skills that are required, are the people locally.

“Devolving education and skills is critical”, he said.

“If I could wave a wand in regeneration the most urgent thing would be the education and training of our young people, and making it worth their while to be able to be part of a society in which they can contribute.”

The history of Liverpool also formed a vital part of the discussion.

Heseltine started the conversation by reflecting on his experiences in 1979, the start of Liverpool’s regeneration story and a time of poverty and containerisation under Thatcher’s government, as well as the lead-up to his famous visit in 1981, during which he was “immersed in the enormity and tragedy of this great city” following the Toxteth riots in July that year.

Working with the local authority, Heseltine went on to lead the transformation of derelict land and communities across the city. He was also responsible for kickstarting the cleaning of the River Mersey, which he described as a “great asset” and a “world-leading example.”

Now, 40 years on, Heseltine described Liverpool as a “city transformed.” But how?

Liverpool City Council’s McColgan, who moved to the city in 1989, recalled her work on the city’s successful European capital of culture bid in 2008, which she believes “made the city’s head rise.” For McColgan, this was a chance to change Liverpool’s future after 20 years of intervention and a battle of perception.

It was in that same year that Grosvenor delivered its 42-acre Liverpool ONE city centre regeneration scheme, a project that Grosvenor’s Preston is extremely proud of.

Preston admitted that the biggest challenge faced in the project’s delivery was the “can’t-do” attitude that seemed to have encapsulated Liverpool.

“So little had happened for so long, no one believed that anything would happen”, he stated, recalling a time in 2004 when people in the street would share doubts that Liverpool ONE would ever happen, despite ground having been broken.

For Preston, Liverpool ONE was about “putting the heart back into the city centre and creating a very bold statement that would lead to more development activity”.

“We really relished the thought of making a big difference to this historic city that had been under for so long and bringing forward a really transformational opportunity in which we could make a big difference to the community”, he said.

Deloitte’s Davidson said that she believed that they achieved this, stating that “it was the perfect project at just the right time”.

For Davidson, it is important that such developments continue to appear in the city centre.

“It is fundamental that we’re getting investment in the place that has the biggest impact”, she stated.

McColgan echoed these remarks, highlighting her pride that Liverpool has “kept faith around the heart”, without which it is impossible to keep the rest of the city alive.

These culture initiatives have certainly kept the city’s momentum alive, with Liverpool having hosted the Eurovision Song Contest just this year.

And, with that, the panel closed on an optimistic note for the future of the city’s regeneration.

“Just keep it going, it’s unstoppable”, declared Heseltine.