Unesco World Heritage status would boost Birkenhead Park - campaigners

The area inspired the development of parks across the world including New York's Central Park

Wirral could benefit from a major tourism boost if Birkenhead Park is granted Unesco World Heritage status, campaigners have said.

The park on Merseyside, which opened in 1847, was part of a project to bring greenery to urban environments.

Graham Arnold, chairman of the Friends of Birkenhead Park, said he hoped the accolade would give the area international recognition.

It is among the sites being put forward by the government to join the list.

If successful, the park would join 33 other World Heritage sites already based in the UK including Stonehenge and Hadrian's Wall.

The site provided a blueprint for municipal planning that has influenced town and city parks across the world, including New York's Central Park.

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"The status would show both nationally and internationally the great importance of Birkenhead Park, both as a landscape design and a piece of town planning but also as a progenitor of parks worldwide," said Mr Arnold.

"It was designed for the local population and people didn't have to pay to visit, which you often did have to previously in the early 1800s.

"It was truly a pioneering public park that provided a relatively unpolluted environment, a lung, in a Victorian town."

Birkenhead Park has been added to the government's "tentative list" to be submitted to Unesco

Mr Arnold said if the status was awarded it would, in conjunction with other attractions such as Hamilton Square, provide a major boost to tourism.

"I think these kinds of things will help to improve tourism in Birkenhead and perhaps pull people across the water to the Wirral from Liverpool," he said.

The park, which was called "The People's Garden" by Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted, currently attracts about two million visitors per year.

'Bolster regeneration'

David Armstrong, assistant chief executive at Wirral Council, said Unesco status would "bolster the wider regeneration of Birkenhead" and cement the park's place in history.

"For several years, it has been an ambition of Wirral Council and partners including the Friends of Birkenhead Park to seek Unesco's recognition of the park," he said.

"To be included on the UK tentative list for potential nomination is fantastic news and shows we are one step closer to achieving that ambition."

Birkenhead MP Mick Whitley said he was "delighted" after asking the culture secretary to lend her support last year.

"There's still a long way to go, but this would be a fantastic accolade for our town," he said.

The park is among seven sites in the UK and its overseas territories are in the running to win the status

The park is located about a mile from Birkenhead town centre and can be accessed via five entrances.

The largest of these is known as Grand Entrance Gateway and is a Grade II listed triple-arched screen flanked by lodges.

The news of Birkenhead's bid comes two years after neighbouring Liverpool was removed from the list of World Heritage sites.

The city had been on the Unesco danger list since 2012, over Unesco's concerns about the development of the north docks.

The decision was described as "incomprehensible" by the city council at the time.