| in-filling of Historic Eighteenth Century Docks Creates an Abomination. | Kings Dock - How Not To Do It | The right complex. However, completely in the wrong location. |
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18th
Century Docks Filled In Creating Car Parks
Adjacent Projects Do Not Mesh The dock water spaces are viewed as a means to generate money for large companies. This entails large entertainment complexes, as is the Kings Dock Arena project. The manager of the new arena is complaining that there are too few parking spaces for buses. The idea is to bus people in from outside of Liverpool and they leave, leaving money behind in the till, as happens in a fairground. A 1700s docks are reduced to a form of fairground. The docks and waterways should be for the people of the city to live around and enjoy the rich inheritance of their forefathers - the city-on-the-water. Commercial complexes can be easily sited on the land side of the dock water spaces and even fronting some of them. Leaving the dock water spaces for people to live around, enjoy the water and add vitality is by far the best approach. Residential and commercial can be both accommodated with the commercial on the land side of the water spaces. Ideal Location For a Stadium Below: The tower is the proposed Queens Dock Tower. The picture is Queens Dock with Kings Dock to the right. On the land side of Queens Dock on the waters edge, where the tower is proposed, would have been an ideal location for the arena with a water facing aspect. The Queens Tower could have been located on one of the branch docks giving a superior location with superior views. The area is full of ramshakle industrial buildings awaiting clearance. Top right of the picture is where the arena is being built. Where land tapers into the water is where the branch docks were filled in. Note that to the right of the Customs House built over the graving docks one of the branch docks has been filled in to create a car park. The disused Wapping rail tunnel emerges to the right just off picture, which could be brought back into service. ![]() Concrete multi-floor Car Park Fronts Wapping Dock Below: One side of Wapping Dock has old attractive historic red brick warehouses, converted to apartments, complete with colonnade walkways, right up to the quayside - similar to the warehouses at the Albert Dock. On the in-filled Kings Dock, which now forms one side of Wapping Dock, a concrete multi-floor car park has been built on the dock waters edge opposite the Wapping Dock warehouse apartments. Behind the multi-floor car park a large concrete stadium structure is being built. The plan is to build apartments on a sliver of land between the concrete structure and the Wapping Dock quays. So, far no construction activity has been seen to construct these blocks. This project turns its back on Wapping Dock and the historic warehouse, treating the dock with contempt. This multi-floor car park is to get people in and out of the area to fill a stadium - a drive to and from leisure complex. This will not create a 7 day a week, all year around vibrant attractive water based community. All very far removed from a vibrant Amsterdam environment this could all have been. Below: An ugly, raw concrete, multi-floor car park on the waters edge of Wapping Dock - this could have been built on the land side of the docks with access using the bridges over the docks, releasing the land for buildings which would accommodate people, not cars. The developers artists impressions and models show a screen in a futile attempt to hide this needless structure. Yet, the impressions show what falsely amounts to Manhattan on the Kings Docks site too. ![]() |
A Lost
Opportunity - 1960s Planning Again In the past 60 years the city of Liverpool has either missed the boat, lost the plot, or went for the lowest common denominator. Little has been learnt from past mistakes. The picture below clearly shows the mass of land generated by filling in docks originating in the 1700s. Only the Customs House, built across Queens Graving Dock, at the bottom of the picture takes advantage of the surrounding water, however does not make full use of the length of quays available. - yet again quays are used as car parks, serving the Customs House. ![]()
The picture below is before the Kings Dock and ![]() The above, Kings,
Dukes and
Queens Dock complex could easily have created something
similar to what is in the
picture below, by just erecting buildings on the quays - the
water
and quays were all there ready.
![]() Second Rate Buildings To Be built on In-Filled Dock Below: Planning permission was granted for three lacklustre plain ugly residential blocks to be be built on an in-filled Queens Dock branch Dock. The picture below is an artists impression of the three blocks, a small block is behind the Customs House. The city demolished many superior high rise blocks over 20 years ago. We sacrifice historic water space to have this dross. The dissapointments mount up. The concrete stadium and multi-floor car park can be seen being erected on the in-filled Kings Dock. ![]() A Large Stadium at Central Docks?
There are rumours that a large
concrete 60,000 seater
stadium, used for around 25 days a year, may be built on in-filled
docks at Central Docks. Central Docks is rumoured to be one of the
earmarked sites for
a stadium. A
large imposing structure used for only 25 days of the year would kill
the area dead. If built, the waterways and docks would be filled with
litter from the large football crowds. Locating a large concrete
structure in a primarily residential area would be as stupid as
building a nuclear power station at Central Docks.
Now no one could be so stupid to do such a dumb thing. Or could they be? |
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