This week, Albert Dock Liverpool officially launched its strategy ‘Albert Dock – Celebrating 175 Years 1846-2021’. This significant date offers an opportunity for the Dock to celebrate both its history and future, showcasing its assets and celebrating its significance to a local, regional and national audience.

Gower Street Estates, the private company which owns the freehold of Albert Dock Liverpool, has directed a strategic approach to celebrate 175 years, spearheading culture, unlocking heritage, delivering award winning events and demonstrating thought leadership for the attraction.

Albert Dock is the North West’s most visited free visitor attraction, with over 6m people visiting in 2015. ‘Albert Dock – Celebrating 175 Years 1846-2021’ ensures that the Grade I Listed estate is orientated around the future visitor economy, building to a year of celebration in 2021 and consolidating the legacy of Albert Dock for future generations. Themed years will be as follows:-

2016 – Engaging hearts and minds

Albert Dock is for the local community, for them to be proud of

2017 – Unlocking heritage

Bringing heritage to life through visual, digital and practical interpretation

2018 – Culture and creativity

10 years since Capital of Culture, 30 years of Tate Liverpool, 10th Liverpool Biennial

2019 – Inspirational events

Award-winning events embedded in authenticity and innovation

Steam on the Dock, Vintage on the Dock, Folk Festival on the Dock and Pirate Festival on the Dock

2020 – Thought-leadership rooted in knowledge and experience

Shaping Albert Dock’s future and the role it can play in boosting the fortunes of the city and wider City Region

2021 – Celebrating 175 years of Albert Dock, and establishing its legacy for the future

Some of the key projects of ‘Albert Dock – Celebrating 175 Years 1846-2021’ include an international research project that will position Albert Dock as a thought-leader of regeneration, working with the Heseltine Institute of Public Policy and Practice at University of Liverpool, to understand the Dock’s journey since the 1980s and its importance to future developments. Activity in the build up to 2021 will also include work with 14 built environment institutions to deliver a series of inter-professional lecture events that will use the Dock as a major case study, covering topics ranging from regeneration, tourism to estate management and the important role the Dock can play in the future of the city and City Region.

A culture legacy group to be chaired by Claire McColgan MBE, director Culture Liverpool, will be developed with partners Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool and Albert Dock, to explore the option to commission a piece of public art that will become a new tourism asset and iconic symbol for the Liverpool waterfront.

‘Albert Dock – Celebrating 175 Years 1846-2021’ will also work with key partners to develop the physical landscape, to establish the Dock as a gateway to Liverpool’s iconic waterfront. Albert Dock will create seamless public realm to improve the visitor experience, work with the city on its Kings Dock master plan and with Canal & River Trust to explore floating structures in Salthouse Dock.

Sue Grindrod, chief executive, Albert Dock Liverpool, said:

“As the forefather of regeneration and tourism in Liverpool and one of the first place makers for the city, it is important that the Dock continues to evolve and grow in order to meet the needs of the modern environment and evolving audiences, and to reflect its own aims to be pioneering, award-winning, game changing and show-stopping.

“While the strategy provides an opportunity to celebrate the Dock’s illustrious past, more importantly it enables us to push forward and create a legacy that adds to the tourism assets in the city and offers new experiences for audiences. As a private company Gower Street Estate can invest in this strategy and secure commercial partners to realise its aims and ambitions.”

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said:

“Albert Dock has always played an active role in the regeneration of Liverpool and I am excited to understand how the Dock is planning to once again set a course for future development, celebrating heritage while embracing the future needs of visitors to our great city.”

Wayne Hemingway, designer, curator of Vintage on the Dock, said:

“Albert Dock is a jewel in Liverpool’s crown – and a ready made and evocative events space. We are very excited to be coming back in the summer, and filling the Dock with classic cars, timeless music, entertainment and of course all those brilliant vintage clothes and accessories.”

Other key components of the strategy will be to deliver a number of community engagement programmes, working with key partners like Heritage Lottery Fund, Tate Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Albert Dock Charitable Foundation, that celebrate the Dock’s history while embedding it in the heart of the communities it serves.

‘Albert Dock – Celebrating 175 Years 1846-2021’ launched on May 26, 2016, at the Martin Luther King Jnr building, Albert Dock. Speakers at the event: Sue Grindrod, chief executive Albert Dock Liverpool; deputy Mayor of Liverpool Ann O’Byrne; Professor Michael Parkinson CBE, associate pro vice chancellor at the University of Liverpool/executive director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice; Claire McColgan MBE, director Culture Liverpool; Wayne Hemingway MBE, director Hemingway Designs; and Katie Wray, RTPI NW chair/senior planner, Deloitte Real Estate.

For more information on this and all upcoming events at Albert Dock Liverpool, please visit www.albertdock.com

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