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Capitalising on its status as European Capital of Culture 2008, Liverpool is
again endeavouring to turn around its economic fortunes, battered and bruised by
years of industrial decline, by placing tourism and leisure at the heart of its
new post-industrial economy. Culture-led regeneration strategies are driving
much of the development currently underway in the city, such as Liverpool One,
the largest retail and leisure development in Europe. In 1984, the International
Garden Festival represented an earlier attempt to embrace the tourist economy in
the hope of stimulating inward investment and economic growth.
The festival was part of a raft of development initiatives proposed in the
1980s by the Merseyside Development Corporation (MDC), set up by former
Conservative Environment Minister Michael Heseltine in the wake of 1981's
Toxteth riots and the widespread urban deprivation of the time. The development
of the south docks was the main focus of MDC's regeneration plans. The
restoration of the historic Albert Dock led to the opening of Tate Liverpool in
1988 in a converted former warehouse. Further upriver, reclaimed dockland at
Dingle was chosen as the site of the International Garden Festival, opened by
the Queen on 2nd May 1984.
Not Just Flowers, like Festival Travel Liverpool 1984 (1984), provides a
filmic document of the festival and the many visitors and tourists who flocked
to the site between May and October 1984. On the site was a festival hall, 60
show gardens, pavilions, a 15" gauge miniature railway, attractions such as a
Yellow Submarine and a Japanese Garden.
While the film's title reflects the diverse range of attractions on offer at
the festival (such as the miniature railway, of particular interest for
transport enthusiast Tilston), it also unwittingly serves as a reminder of one
of the chief criticisms of the project at the time. The call for 'jobs not
trees' pointed to questions about the festival's lasting benefits for
communities such as Toxteth and Dingle, which were (and remain) among the
poorest in Europe. Films by independent film and video collectives such as
Community Productions Merseyside, whose Welcome to the Pleasure Dome (1985)
provides a critical look at the role of the MDC, question the value and impact
of initiatives such as the Garden Festival on local residents and communities.
Similar questions are being posed today in relation to some of the corporate-led
regeneration plans attached to Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture
2008.
Les Roberts
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Edited version (4:22)
