Former BBC boss wants to help Liverpool City Region make noise

From historic ferries across the Mersey, Liverpool and the wider city region have always known how to make waves.

Because of our music, sporting heritage and rich cultural history, Merseyside’s boroughs have been a draw for visitors from around the world for decades.

After the universally agreed success of hosting last year’s Eurovision Song Contest and a whole slate of events lined up over the next five years, a former BBC director-general feels it’s time for the whole Liverpool city region to make an even bigger splash.

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Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, has been appointed chairman of a panel of 15 experts to help shape a five-year plan to boost the region’s credentials as one of Europe’s leading events capitals. Speaking to the ECHO, former president of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and chairman of the Cultural Olympiad, Lord Hall explained why he wanted to be involved in helping the City Region take its next step.

He said: “Partly from my time at the BBC and the (London) Olympics, I ran the cultural festival for this. I’ve seen how bringing people together to make a real impact, to come together, to have conversations that don’t happen often, whether from authorities or from different backgrounds, can be really powerful, and I think the cultural festival that I have organized alongside the Olympics said to bring many people together, give them direction, let them develop a strategy, advise the executives.

“At the BBC we believed the same thing. That was one thing that interested me in that and there’s also the fact that I was born in Birkenhead, my father was born in Birkenhead and my grandfather was.

“I was very excited at a BBC sales conference where he pointed out to a lot of American buyers about Cammell Laird producing Sir David Attenborough’s research vessel, Birkenhead Park being the first urban park – not New York’s Central Park.”

Lord Hall has spent a long and storied career at the center of Britain’s cultural scene. He spent seven years at the helm of the BBC, while taking on roles at the National Gallery and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Despite a national profile, a return to his roots proved a lure for colleagues on the crossbench, who advised the Wirral Borough Cultural Program and the Williamson Art Gallery.

He cited the Future Yard site in Birkenhead as “really, really exceptional” and said it was an example of work being done outside Liverpool that could be further put on the platforms. He said: “What I saw through the meetings on the Wirral was this sense that, it’s not just Liverpool, it’s all these parts of the city region that have had a lot of buzz, excitement and a lot of things going on.

“When the CA team came to me, it seemed like total impatience.”

As the former head of the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest, the former CEO was among the hundreds of thousands who flocked to Liverpool last year for the event. He was effusive in his praise for the show the city put on.
He said: “I came to Eurovision last year for the semi-finals and I was the president of the EBU. I love Eurovision, it’s awesome, exciting and crazy.

“No other global city could have done it like Liverpool did with Ukraine, it was fantastic. When this came up I thought how do we do more of this?

“Liverpool should see itself, not just as a UK city, but as a global city. I met someone on my way from Los Angeles who said since he was a kid he wanted to come to Liverpool because of the music.”

However, the core of the new partnership is bringing the city region together. Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram confirmed as a result the Combined Authority will double its culture budget to support future development.

He said: “We have all the empirical evidence we need to show that it does not provide materials but generates a multiplier effect. For every kilo, you get back.

“We know that this gives us a profit and we are the first area in the country to dedicate 1% of its budget to culture and we have exceeded it by a lot. Shakespeare North in Prescot was a cultural investment.

“We want to demonstrate that culture could play a significant role in economic growth. It’s not just about the visitor economy, it’s about what we’re doing in the future with life sciences, advanced computing, advanced manufacturing.”

Among the major events coming to the City Region this summer is the small matter of Taylor Swift’s world tour at Anfield. It’s the start of five huge years for the area, according to new council chairman Lord Hall.

He said: “We’ve got the Euros, we’ve got golf, then in 2029 the anniversary of the Rainhill Trials, which I think could be amazing. The railway age, two centuries ago, was born here, it could be amazing.

“There is the possibility of making a big splash for the city region. We are seventh for international visitors to the UK and we should go up the league, of course we should.

“I hope that together we can really help build the brand globally, it’s there, it just needs more encouragement and more prodding. There are so many things going on in the city region, what we need to do is amplify those things.

“We want to say that if you come here, it’s not just downtown, we want to be able to map people and help people come here. I think we need to put something together that builds on the strength of the boroughs, but it’s a Merseyside deal.

“I think we’re well placed to do that.”

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