UNESCO representatives are to give their perspective on Liverpool’s World Heritage Site amid ongoing concerns the city could lose the status.

Residents are being invited to register for a series of seminars featuring heritage officials including UNESCO’s chief of the Europe and North America unit, Isabelle Anatole-Gabriel.

Organised by social enterprise Engage Liverpool CIC, the series entitled ‘Liverpool UNESCO World Heritage Site – A status worth fighting for?’ will take place on 4 October, 18 October and 1 November.

Isabelle will appear at the first of the three events and will be followed by Michael Turner, UNESCO’s chair in urban design and conservation studies at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem at the second; and then Ming Yang, former UNESCO deputy director and coordinator for world heritage cities, at the third.

The first session at Liverpool Town Hall will focus on the question ‘UNESCO World Heritage Site – What’s It All About?’, while the second at the Museum of Liverpool will come under the title of ‘Why the Conflict?’ and the final event, being held at St George’s Hall, will be called ‘Where’s the Value?’.

Liverpool was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 covering six areas of the city centre and docklands, however it was said at a meeting in Krakow earlier this year to have until February 2018 to fight for the status.

Ahead of the free seminars Gerry Proctor, chair of Engage Liverpool CIC, says: “With time running out for Liverpool, we are creating an urgent civic conversation asking if we have sufficiently valued the status that being a UNESCO World Heritage Site city confers.

“UNESCO’s voice has never been properly heard in the city, except perhaps in negative ways. In bringing three UNESCO representatives to Liverpool, alongside a local panel of specialist speakers and councillors, we aim to generate discussion that considers both the potential impact of the loss and what could be gained from development and conservation working together.”

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