Tomorrow the World?

The Stirrer (amongst others) has been talking about the possibility that the Jewellery Quarter may become a World Heritage Site, meaning that, erm, er, not very much.

World Heritage Site status is a wide ranging beast, from The Great Barrier Reef to Liverpool’s docks and many non-wet places in between. According to the quotes on The Stirrer the council and Jewellery Quarter association see it as a boost to tourism:

“The resulting profile and recognition on the international stage would provide…a huge boost to tourism..” (Birmingham’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration Neville Sumerfield)
“Although the Quarter has two museums – one of the jewellery, the other celebrating the history of the pen, I’m not sure we’ve got enough to keep the tourists here. We need more help from Advantage West Midlands.” (Marie Haddleton of the Jewellery Quarter Association)

Not sure how being on a list that few people are aware of will boost tourism at all (did you know there were 851 World Heritage Sites to visit before you die?) – but it may be a boost to conservation in the area, which can only be a good thing.

Photo By Lee Jordan, used under CC licence.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm by Jon Bounds and is filed under Birmingham City Council, environment, history, tourism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Paul Ashton

At first sight this seems a great idea. I welcome it in principle. But before everybody thinks this is the be all and end all, it isn't! Take one of the most important WHSs in the UK, the Jurassic Coast, as an example. It is so precious they allowed the Napoli to be beached, allowed morons to spread salvage all over the place, then managed to cut off the floating bit and tow it away, leaving the bridge end stuck less than a mile offshore where it remains over a year later.

Tom

It's got very little tangible benefit if you ask me either for conservation or money-generating purposes, not much use other than as a marketing campaign. Also it's spectacularly unlikely to happen, far too many hoops to jump through and other better candidates.

I've been talking to people about this all day, and not managed to find much to get excited about. More here.

Birmingham: It's Not Shit