Sir Neil Cossons.How did he get away with this.

Sir Neil Cossons-English Heretic. 

When the Liverpool Council planners under the Chief planning officer Nigel Lee secretly slipped in the plans for the then proposed museum in Liverpool’s world heritage site on 20th December 05, I could not believe it, I should have been shopping for socks for my Uncle Billy, I did not even know of the proposals despite being very involved in planning matters for some time and specifically World Heritage. Armed with a report from Icomos UK and my own speech. I SHOT OVER TO THE TOWN HALL TO BE THE LONE OBJECTOR. No one knew about this even though the Ombudsman later cleared them because a one-inch advert appeared in the Merseymart or somewhere that conveniently nobody knew of. http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=307&MId=4716&Ver=4

IT WAS STITCHED UP WELL AND TRULY BEFORE-HAND. David Irving as Chair standing in for Lady Doyenne Jones nodded it through.

 I got the list of letters sent out by the council one was addressed "the Statue Pier Head" another "The Car Park" Mann Island another to a shop next to mine that did not exist and my shop did not receive one. How strange. 

I thought that Peter de Figueiredo http://www.defigueiredo.co.uk/index.html who was English Heretics historic building advisor at the time has something to answer about so I wrote to the Heretics under the Freedom of Information act requesting all the documents to show how a reasonable decision could have been made with our world heritage site without public consultation. Something the toothless UNESCO would later confirm was undemocratic. 

Then by chance I stumbled across a strange bit of information that the then Chairman of English Heritage Sir Neil Cossons was working for Liverpool Museums…along with ex top knob at the Heretics bureau, Loyd Grossman who was then the chairman of NML…along with the then leader of the city council the now disgraced Mike Storey (who conveniently didn’t tell anyone, in fact it appeared to be a secret)…and the Chairman of the North West Development Agency, Bryan Gray who was to fund the museum by the sale of the land to build 3 huge blocks on the Mann Island site that they owned. They were in the plans but with transparent pen. http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/liverpooldailypost/news/regionalnews/tm_headline=controversy-as-building-plans-set-to-go-ahead%26method=full%26objectid=17867193%26page=2%26siteid=50061-name_page.html Copy thereof 149. Declaration of Interest The Chairman invited Trustees present to indicate whether they had any conflicting or prejudicial interests within the items of business set out below. Not specific to any agenda items Mr Grossman advised that he may have conflicts of interest arising from his Deputy Chairmanship of the Liverpool Culture Company. Mr Gray advised that he may have conflicts arising from his Chairmanship of the North West Development Agency. Sir Neil Cossons advised the he may have conflicts of interest arising from his Chairmanship of English Heritage. Councillor Storey advised that he may have conflicts of interest arising from his role as Leader of Liverpool City Council. RESOLVED that the Board accepts that none of these possible interests give rise to undue conflict or could prejudice the proper transaction of the business of this meeting and the Trustees concerned should not therefore be expected to withdraw from the discussions. 150. Decisions of Trustees Permission to accept offer of £32,700,000 from the North West Development Agency RESOLVED that the Trustees accept offer of £32,700,000 from the North West Development Agency The list of conflicts of interest was immense one of NMLs trustees had even had a job done by 3XN the architects the strange occurrence that not a soul in Liverpool had heard of until the plans for the WHS had been approved. Despite the Conflicts of Interest, lets move on, and ignore them, they then decided. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/trusteesDotNet/meetings.aspx?tid=47 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17112292%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html How can you have a then Chairman of English Heritage working for the very perpetrators of WHS disaster. It should not have been allowed? What the English Heritage series show is that if its convenient, it’s a stitch up right from the top down. Thurley denied there was any conflict of interests after I wrote to him. Well he would, wouldn't he. Current trustees http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/trustees/index.aspx 

  I hope this man who makes a fortune writing and talking about heritage can sleep at night.

Update 30.9.2021

Liverpool has now been stripped of its World Heritage Site Status.