Just over 30 miles separate the metropolitan north west behemoths of Liverpool and Manchester and, despite the famous rivalry, they have much in common: like a thriving Chinatown.
The natives of each city are very warm, chatty and friendly. Both have produced football teams with global fan bases with Manchester City’s ascendancy disrupted by Liverpool FC.
Manchester United, despite their post-Ferguson travails, have huge commercial revenue off pitch and are planning to replace Old Trafford in the next decade.
Tolerance in the DNA
They have another great thing in common too – tolerance for immigration, with Manchester dwarfing Liverpool’s multiculturalism with 220 spoken languages reported in the last census.
Toxteth and Moss Side have long associations with Afro-Caribbean settlement and each has a thriving and historic Chinatown.
Manchester has also seen an influx of settlers from Hong Kong and South Korea, with a long-established Vietnamese community dating back to the 1970s.
Liverpool’s Chinatown
Follow Bold Street from the city centre and wear Rudy’s (a Manchester-based pizzeria sits to the left), turn right instead with the church facing you and you’ll notice the dual language street signs (in English and Mandarin) and a collection of Chinese businesses.
In front of you, it’s impossible to miss the much photographed Chinese arch – in fact the biggest outside Mainland China. The Chinatown here is the oldest in the UK – trumping even Manchester.
The Baltic Triangle Liverpool
Walk under it to the sculpted lions at the end and a small urban park leads you to the area now known as the Baltic Triangle. This is often referred to as Liverpool’s equivalent to Manchester’s Northern Quarter and, though it’s less developed, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to see why.
The Baltic Triangle was the former warehouse area for Liverpool Docks and the Mersey spanning impressively to the south. There are conversions of period industrial buildings into modern apartments. What strikes us, at Block Compliance Ltd, is that this area is seeing huge redevelopments along Jamaica Street all the way to the city centre to the west and east.
Liverpool’s pace of change, and lower investment, may mean it doesn’t (yet) have its own Deansgate Square, its own 360 or New Jackson or New Elizabeth (predominantly Renaker builds on brownlead close to Hulme and the Mancunian Way.
But Liverpool is not sleeping either
It is, arguably, a finer city than Manchester architecturally and Pier Head and the Royal Albert Dock are superior to anything that Manchester offers.
Block Compliance Ltd, as always, are keen to extend our passive fire protection in what was once England’s second city (many claim that title however).
We have conducted fire door surveys, fire risk assessments and fire compartmentation surveys at several sites in Liverpool, namely:
- All Six House, Derby Square (see blog here)
- 94-96 Wood Street (blog here)
- One Park West
The final one is close to Liverpool One, a fine open air shopping experience, connecting the main drag Lord Street with Strand Street at the entrance to the magnificent Royal Albert Dock.
Our work showcased on social media
In Manchester, our work is well documented on our active LinkedIn and Instagram channels, with York, Leeds and many sites across London featuring too.
To us, with Liverpool’s heritage, its superb transport links and grand architectural statement pieces, it is an awakening giant. Steve Rotheram, like Andy Burnham in Manchester, is keen to trumpet and showcase the many fine attributes Liverpool has a place to visit, work, live and invest in.
We echo those ambitions and hope that major new developments and existing ones in Liverpool use our expert passive fire protection teams for building safety case reports. fire door and fire compartmentation surveys, as well as passive fire surveys in residential and commercial blocks.
Liverpool, like Manchester, London, Leeds and York, is a great city.
Contact our team, with offices in West Yorkshire and London today: info@blockcompliance.net
