World Heritage status on the UNESCO list is something to celebrate and gloat over in the tourism brochures and everywhere else. Every Heritage site aspires to be on the bucket list of international travelers. And every place in the world tries its best to live up to its World Heritage status and never lose it.

Liverpool, the port town in the northwest of England--and the hometown of the legendary pop band The Beatles-- has just lost the World Heritage status, makings its administrators and residents angry. [https://www.trtworld.com/art-culture/anger-as-unesco-strips-liverpool-of-world-heritage-site-status-48554]

Liverpool was named a World Heritage Site in 2004. It was the architectural beauty on the waterfront that was the clincher, besides its rich history.

So, what prompted the United Nations body to strip Liverpool of its status? The city was developing too fast, it seems.

Under the ‘Liverpool Waters’ project, the city has implemented various infrastructure projects leading to gleaming buildings on the waterfront eclipsing the heritage buildings. Some new projects like a football stadium in Bramley-Moore Dock could to further "threat of further deterioration," says UNESCO.

In a secret vote UNESCO decided to strip Liverpool after it considered a report published in June by the World Heritage Committee. The Committee expressed “deep regret” and said that developments in the city and on its waterfront had “resulted in serious deterioration and irreversible loss of attributes,” as well as a “significant loss to its authenticity and integrity.”

Was Liverpool not aware of the risks to its status?

The city knew for a long time. Back in 2012, the Committee said that the proposed development of ‘Liverpool Waters’ could put the World Heritage property status in danger as the "development would "irreversibly damage the attributes and conditions of integrity that warranted inscription." The Committee also placed Liverpool on the 'World Heritage in Danger' list with the possibility of deletion from the World Heritage List. So, the warning signs were already there.

Richard Kemp, a member of the Liverpool City Council, described the loss of status on Twitter as a “day of shame for Liverpool.”

Read more:

News report:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/world/europe/liverpool-unesco-world-heritage-status.html

Why Liverpool lost its status:
https://www.dw.com/en/why-liverpool-lost-its-unesco-world-heritage-listing/a-58608706

What the UNESCO says:
http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2021/whc21-44com-7A.Add-en.pdf