Lessons from Liverpool (From The Northern Echo)

Lessons from Liverpool

9:56am Tuesday 15th September 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

Backers of Durham’s bid to be named first UK City of Culture say the prize could change the county for generations. Mark Tallentire reports from Liverpool, which has just enjoyed being Capital of Culture 2008.

PHIL REDMOND likes to compare preparations for Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008 to a “typical Scouse wedding”. In the months before the big day, that lot weren’t speaking to this lot, he wouldn’t go if she was there, and so on . . .

But nine months after Liverpool passed the cultural baton to Linz, in Austria, and Vilnius, in Lithuania, a project which cost Merseyside £125m is thought to have produced a return of £800m. And, to complete the metaphor, at the appointed hour everyone put their differences aside and had a right good party.

The 12 months featured more than 7,000 events – including 600 premieres – involving 10,000 artists. About 15 million people visited the city, including 3.5 million who had never been before.

This has led to the 12 months being described as the most successful European Capital of Culture year ever, and it has left an arts scene reinvigorated and a music scene re-energised.

Of course, Durham is not Liverpool. The European Capital of Culture (ECOC) scheme is not the UK City of Culture (UKCC) prize. And Durham has not yet won – there are 29 bidders for the inaugural 2013 title.

But there is undoubtedly inspiration to be drawn from the Merseyside experience.

Insiders say ECOC was a cultural catalyst: rocket fuel for regeneration.

Between 2000 and 2008, nearly 300 major building and development projects were completed in the city – worth an estimated £4bn.

Visitors to seven major attractions – National Museums Liverpool, the Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Cathedral, the World of Glass, Southport Pier, the Beatles Story and Mersey Ferries – jumped from 2.9 million to 4.2million in only three years.

It is almost as if the people of Liverpool have been regenerated, too. Last year, more than twothirds of them reported visiting a museum – 25 per cent up on two years earlier.

Perhaps more significantly, perceptions of Liverpool have changed.

In the countdown to 2008, London-based officials predicted nothing short of a Scouse cockup.

Now, research suggests 79 per cent of people think Liverpool is a city on the rise – the highest figure for any city in the UK.

Much of this is due to the media taking notice.

For example, 380 accredited journalists attended the ECOC opening weekend, which saw former Beatle Ringo Starr drumming on the roof of St George’s Hall.

So Redmond, a slightly dishevelled Scouser who made his name as producer of soap opera Brookside, must have done something right.

He was parachuted in as creative director of Liverpool’s year only months before it began, giving the city one of its own, opening up culture to the masses, taking the message to the media and banging heads together among the feuding Merseyside marital party.

Last Wednesday, Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw named Redmond as chairman of the UK City of Culture judging panel.

It’s a job which, he says, means he’ll have to shut up about culture for a few years. So on Thursday, at the UKCC seminar, held at Liverpool’s John Moores University, he was revelling in his last opportunity to speak out.

He said: “I think before 2008, Liverpool had slipped into this backward-looking mentality of ‘We can’t achieve anything’.

“What 2008 did was raise our eyes and our aspirations, so we realised that if we were all working together we could raise confidence in the city and achieve things. We reminded people there was excellence in Liverpool.”

SO what might does culture mean in County Durham? It is, undeniably, about heritage.

Durham Cathedral and Castle is a World Heritage Site which attracts 600,000 visitors every year.

Next door, there is one of the country’s top universities.

And it is landscape. Teesdale, Weardale and the Durham Heritage Coast boast some of the most peaceful and beautiful spots to be found anywhere in the UK.

But the county also has a thriving cultural scene and exciting plans for the future. The Arts Council of England estimates Durham City’s Gala Theatre contributes £6.5m to the local economy every year.

Barnard Castle’s Bowes Museum is undergoing a major revamp, there are far-reaching plans afoot for Durham city centre and the lead mining museum at Killhope has ambitions to be the hub of the North Pennines. The visitor economy is worth £650m a year and employs 12,000 people.

Durham’s bid to be UKCC seeks to reconnect the county’s communities with its capital city, re-energising it along the way.

None of that guarantees Durham the prize.

Other bidders will be pressing their case equally hard.

As George Garlick, chief executive of Durham County Council, said: “We’re aiming to win. I’m excited about the scale of the effect being European Capital of Culture had on Liverpool as a catalyst for change.

“It’s something that could bring ten or 15 years’ regeneration and development into a fiveyear timescale. That’s a huge potential prize.”

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)