From European Capital of Culture to

the Institute of Cultural Capital:

Liverpool and the legacy of 2008
Professor John Belchem

Paper given at After the Cultural City –

New Positions for Culture in Urban
Development, Pecs, Hungary,
24th September 2010
Published in 2000, the first edition of my Merseypride: essays in
Liverpool exceptionalism grappled with the stigma, doom and gloom
which kept late twentieth century Liverpool apart, an internal „other‟
within enterprise Britain.1 Written in the context of seemingly
irreversible economic and demographic decline, the essays offered only
limited optimism for the future. Liverpool‟s „exceptional‟ past, I suggested,
offered the last best hope in the city‟s „urban asset audit‟:2 repackaged as
heritage, „Merseypride‟ history might facilitate regeneration through
conservation and cultural tourism. How circumspect and lacking in
ambition this now seems. In the space of a few short years between the
first and second edition of the essays – specially revised in time for
European Capital of Culture year in 2008 – the „reborn‟ city reinvented
itself, moving beyond regeneration towards urban renaissance.3 Indeed,
as the robust evidence-based findings of the Impacts 08 research team
amply attest, the new „Livercool‟ is an exemplary case study of the positive
relationship between culture and urban renewal. Through the new

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 2
Institute of Cultural Capital, Liverpool aspires to continue the upward
trajectory, linking policy, practice and research in the cultural city.
For the historian there are considerable ironies in the contemporary
inflexion of Liverpool as cultural city. Culture was at first notable by its
absence – as it rose from obscurity in the long 18th century, commercial
Liverpool acquired a reputation for mercenary philistinism. In the
nineteenth century, however, in what was to be the first of a number of
rebranding exercises, philistine Liverpool sought to transform itself into
„Liverpolis‟, a Victorian version of a city state dedicated to commerce,
culture and civilization. Patronized by merchant princes, culture promised
legitimacy and pride, a counterweight „to redeem Liverpool from the
reproach of an exclusive devotion to commercial pursuits and the
acquisition of wealth‟.4 A century later, as the great seaport, the gateway
of empire, slipped down the urban hierarchy into economic depression,
culture took on a different role in another attempt to rebrand and
reposition the city. Attesting to the quality of life on Merseyside, cultural
resources were promoted to entice inward investors to set up industrial
enterprises in Liverpool in a much-needed if somewhat belated attempt to
broaden the economic base beyond the commercial and mercantile. Having
quickly collapsed into the „shock city‟ of post-industrial Britain, Liverpool
has once again revised its approach to culture. No longer a mere
counterweight or attractive accessory, the cultural and creative sector is
now privileged as the essential economic driver in and of itself. The most
dynamic commercial sector, culture offers the best means of enhancing
graduate retention and of reversing the talent and brain drain.5
The historical ironies involved here are worth exploring in more
detail as they provide the context in which to assess the sustainability of

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 3
Liverpool as cultural city and its possible relevance as role model for other
cities seeking regeneration through culture. Published in 1773, William
Enfield‟s Essay towards the history of Leverpool served as an important
foundation text, bemoaning the absence of cultural provision: „The history
of a place which has lately emerged from obscurity, and which owes, if not
its being, at least its consequence to the commercial and enterprizing
spirit of modern times, cannot be supposed to afford many materials for
the entertainment of the curious antiquarian.‟6 „Few of the merchants have
had more education than befits a counting house‟, Samuel Derrick, the
Master of Ceremonies at Bath observed during a visit in 1760, but their
tables were „plenteously furnished‟, not least with excellent rum, consumed
in „large quantities in punch, made, when the West-India fleets come in,
mostly with limes, which are very cooling, and afford a delicious flavour‟.7
Other factors contributed to commercial Liverpool‟s adverse image
problem, above all the prominence of the slave trade. Georgian Liverpool,
the slaving capital of the world, unashamedly extolled its commercial
acumen and success in the trade against the meddlesome moralism of
„outside‟ abolitionist opinion. As abolitionists claimed the moral high
ground elsewhere in Britain, materialist Liverpool stood condemned for
barbarism, philistinism and lack of civilized culture. As Seymour Drescher
notes, Liverpool „was faced with a threat not just to its economic base but
to its cultural identity‟.8 Before the infamous trade was abolished in 1807,
Liverpool guidebooks had already withdrawn from the ideological
barricades, relegating the trade (and hence discussion of its morality) to no
more than peripheral importance to the town's prosperity. After abolition,
the moral and social distancing continued apace aided by a new register of
enterprise as the port adjusted quickly to abolition, opening lucrative new

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 4
markets and trade to Africa and elsewhere. There were other adjustments,
including a cultural reassessment of the past: those who had opposed the
trade against the odds were henceforth privileged and revered. Reviled at
the time, William Roscoe and his circle were rehabilitated as role models
for „Liverpolis‟, the foundation figures of Liverpool's post-abolitionist pre-
eminence in the civilized culture of commerce. Through study of
renaissance Florence, Roscoe, the merchant scholar, found „refreshment
from the brutal materialism of his native town, and inspiration for the
attempt to breathe into it a new spirit‟.9
The new cultural mission of Roscoe-inspired gentlemanly capitalists,
complemented by the „improving‟ civic duties undertaken by the council,
following municipal reform in 1835, did much to make good previous
deficiencies: the absence of „historic‟ cultural, educational and charitable
endowments; and the inattention to social problems in the single-minded
pursuit of commercial advantage. A plethora of learned societies attended
to the promotion of literature and the arts (science and technology were at a
discount in the culture of commerce), supplemented by a number of
voluntary associations specifically geared to the education and recreation of
young clerks, „Liverpool gentlemen‟ – not „Manchester men‟ – in the
making.10 Conscious of „the vast responsibilities and the magnificent
opportunities that lay before it‟, the new council initiated programmes of
educational, sanitary and health reform, and was among the first to
establish a public library and museum (aided by the benefaction of William
Brown, the leading merchant prince in the Atlantic trade). The „new spirit of
civic pride‟ reached a high-point in the „great Athenian period‟ (to use C.H.
Reilly‟s subsequent architectural classification), symbolized by construction
of St George‟s Hall, „that noble building, one of the noblest in the modern

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 5
world, which is today the supreme architectural boast of the city‟.11
However, the cost of the building scandalised sanitary reformers who were
concerned less about reversing Liverpool‟s philistine image than eradicating
its reputation as „the black spot on the Mersey‟, an early instance of a
recurrent controversy in urban promotion between public display and basic
infrastructure.
In the end, Victorian Liverpool failed to fulfil Roscoe‟s vision of „the
Florence of the north‟. Mercantile support for the Confederate South in the
American Civil War was symptomatic of a relapse to the materialist
philistinism of the bad old days of the slave trade. In the „maritime
metropolis of the world‟, the values of civilized commerce extended no
further than a Liberal minority, a socially exclusive (predominantly
Unitarian) elite, lacking in political influence and popular resonance.
Debarred from political power, Liberal families turned to philanthropy and
cultural benefaction as their means of „impressing themselves on the town‟.12
In a lecture in 1875, Philip Rathbone called for greater acknowledgement of
„the political value of art to municipal life‟:

It is for us, with our vast population, our enormous wealth (as a
town), but without either politics or philosophy that the world
will care to preserve, to decide whether we will take advantage of
our almost unequalled opportunities for the cultivation of Art, or
whether we shall be content to rot away, as Carthage, Antioch
and Tyre have rotted away, leaving not a trace to show here a
population of more than half a million souls once lived, loved, felt
and thought. Surely the home of Roscoe is worthy of a better
fate?13

The failed promise of the nineteenth century notwithstanding,

Ramsay Muir‟s History marking the 700th anniversary of Liverpool in 1907
ended on a triumphant note of high idealism. Liverpool, the second city of

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 6
empire, had at last acquired official city, diocesan and university status
(although the location of the initial University College buildings in „a disused
lunatic asylum in the midst of a slum district‟ hardly seemed appropriate).
Supremely confident of its future, Edwardian Liverpool was able to invest
not only in „palaces of trade‟ but also in „civic obligations‟, a fitting climax to
Muir‟s 700th anniversary narrative:

The city which, at the opening of a new age, is simultaneously

engaged in erecting a great cathedral and a great university, is
surely no mean city. It is building for itself twin citadels of the
ideal, a citadel of faith and a citadel of knowledge; and from the
hill which once looked down on an obscure hamlet, and which
later saw ships begin to crowd the river, and streets to spread
over the fields, their towers will look across the ship-thronged
estuary, monuments of a new and more generous aspiration.14

Within a few years, the confidence carried forward from the 700th
anniversary celebrations and Muir‟s History appeared drastically
misplaced. As the brief post-war boom came to an end, Harrods dropped
their plans for a Liverpool store in 1920, a symbolic precursor of the city‟s
downward spiral in the interwar decades.15 Established in 1925, the
Society of Lovers of Old Liverpool tried to reverse the trend, clinging to the
Merseypride of the recent past, encapsulated in the epigraph, „Liverpool‟s
story is the world's glory‟. Driven by nostalgia, history was being
transmuted into heritage, intended for internal reassurance. Another
group, founded by businessmen, adopted a more instrumental and pro-
active approach, repackaging Liverpool‟s culture, character and history as
the city‟s unique selling point for forward-looking inward investment.
Founded by Fred Marquis, the Liverpool Organization for Advancing the
Trade and Commerce of Liverpool eulogised the tough „Liverpool fibre‟.

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 7
Tried and tested by history, here was a proven track record of hard graft,
dynamism and enterprise to impress potential inward investors. Forged in
early struggles against medieval overlords and surrounding gentry,
Liverpool‟s heritage of independent, no-nonsense toughness offered a set of
transferable skills, previously deployed to secure commercial pre-
eminence, now ripe for industrial application.
Industrial diversification was aided by civic enterprise – just as had
been the case in the early 18th century when construction of the pioneer wet
docks system initiated the port‟s exponential commercial growth. The move
into industry was facilitated by major transport infrastructure projects: the
Mersey tunnel and the East Lancs arterial road, acts of faith in the future
designed to „remove Liverpool from its geographical corner‟ and ensure its
integration in the industrial heartland of the nation. Shortly afterwards,
the Liverpool Corporation Act of 1936 brought added impetus to this
much-needed industrial development, according the city unique powers to
lay out and develop industrial estates and to erect factories for sale or
lease in outlying areas such as Aintree, Kirkby and Speke.
The cultural initiatives inaugurated by the Liverpool Organization
were reinforced after the Second World War as blitz-damaged Liverpool
sought to encourage reconstruction and the location of new industries. As
part of the Festival of Britain in 1951, Liverpool promoted „a Festival of
the people for the people‟, offering spectacular street processions and
pageants (initially under the direction of Tyrone Guthrie) and lavish
firework displays on the Mersey, special treats for „Everyman‟ who „may
not be at home at the opera, may be bored by the ballet, and may sit out
orchestral concerts with clenched fists‟. At the 750th celebrations a few
years later, much was on offer for cultural consumption. In music alone

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 8
the range extended from recitals at St George‟s Hall to mark the re-
building of the world famous organ, international maestros imported at
lavish expense (most notably Arthur Rubinstein who commanded a fee of
one thousand guineas) through local-born crooners with national
reputations to „wackers in dinner jackets‟ performing „Scouser Songs‟.
A proxy indicator of the quality of life on Merseyside, these cultural
festivities had a clear economic purpose to encourage further inward
industrial investment. One of the main visitor attractions in 1951 was the
futuristic Skylon towering above the „Daylight on Industry‟ exhibition,
while in 1957 the Cleveland Square-Paradise Street area was transformed
from a bomb site into a „white tent town‟ with 75,000 square feet of display
space for the „Industry Advances‟ exhibition. Unrestrained in its
progressivism, George Chandler's Liverpool, the publication sponsored by
the City Council to celebrate the 750th anniversary, hailed Liverpool in
1957 as „an industrial boom town‟.
Liverpool‟s period of „branch plant‟ prosperity was all too brief, but it
was accompanied by a remarkable cultural florescence. The traditional
landfall of American popular culture, Liverpool with its sleek „Cunard
Yanks‟ had been the first British city to emerge from dull post-war
austerity. During the 1960s, in a remarkable reversal of cultural flows,
Liverpool itself set the pace and style. Through the „four lads who shook
the world‟ and various other exponents (and inflections) of the Merseybeat,
Liverpool seemed, as Allen Ginsberg observed, the centre of the creative
universe. It was not to last. As factories closed, the celebrities left (along
with tens of thousands of ordinary Liverpudlians seeking work), leaving
only world-class football as cultural consolation for economic adversity.
Once the great „beat city‟ of the 1960s, Liverpool transmogrified into the

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 9
„beaten city‟ of the Thatcherite decades, the „shock city‟ of post-industrial
Britain – a „“showcase” of everything that has gone wrong in Britain‟s major
cities‟.16 Despite various initiatives, employment and population fell by 23%
and 12% respectively in the 1980s. Pioneer attempts at cultural tourism,
the International Garden Festival of 1984 and refurbishment of the Albert
Dock (despite the successful establishment of Tate Liverpool), failed to
turn the tide. Seemingly irreversible economic and demographic decline
spiralled Liverpool down into European Union Objective One status in
1993, the level of GDP per head having fallen to only 73% of the European
Union average.
Although at the time it seemed a badge of failure, the „award‟ of
Objective One funding to the Merseyside „sub-region‟ may come to be seen
in historical perspective as a decisive turning-point for the city. It began a
process, dramatically accelerated by the award of European Capital of
Culture status, which has led to yet another decisive shift in economic
structure, civic image and urban identity. In the new „Livercool‟ culture is
now reified as the economic driver in and of itself. Won amidst stiff
competition in June 2003, Capital of Culture status was a most welcome
but unexpected award. The local authorities have openly acknowledged
that expectations extended no further than the initial boost simply of
bidding, of establishing the city‟s credentials to be judged alongside more
favoured (and less denigrated) locations. To its surprise (and delight), the
Council‟s „Culture Company‟ had to transform its role (no easy task) from
civic boosterism to major project delivery, and beyond 2008 to securing a
sustained and enduring cultural future for the city. Thanks to World
Heritage inscription (July 2004) and Capital of Culture status, Liverpool
has a brace of glittering prizes (with attendant benefits in cultural tourism

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 10
and employment), more than adequate compensation for the end of the
second round of Objective One funding in 2006.
When editing the new history of Liverpool to mark its 800th
anniversary in 2007, I welcomed the advent of „Livercool‟ but cast doubt on
its sustainability.17
I noted how sociologists feared „culture wars‟ between cultural policy as a
tool for economic growth and cultural policy as an expression of grassroots
and community-based activity – the kind of „scouse‟ culture that has been
so creative in dialectic reaction to recent economic adversity.18 There was
an important spatial dimension behind such concerns. Despite official
denial and some effort to penetrate outer areas, cultural re-branding
seemed to reinforce (perhaps rather too dramatically) the city-centre focus
of the regeneration agenda, markedly different from interwar attempts at
redefining (and reviving) Liverpool through a policy of outlying industrial
diversification in Speke, Aintree and Kirkby. In the city centre itself,
„culture‟ was being commodified into corporate franchised blandness,
denying space to the alternative, diverse and challenging cultural forms of
expression which have contributed so much to the city‟s cultural creativity
and distinctive identity. Thanks in particular to Liverpool One, a 42-acre
retail regeneration project, Liverpool city centre was being improved in
appearance, but was it at the cost of its distinct identity, that „otherness‟ so
cherished in its past? In chronicling the city‟s popular music from the
Cavern to the Coral, Paul Du Noyer describes Liverpool as „a sort of
sunless Marseille‟, defiantly non-provincial, the capital of itself.19 Would it
be able to retain that „edge‟ city creative excitement characteristic of de-
centred major ports like Naples and Marseille with similar „second city‟
pretensions and picaresque reputations?

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 11
 While some concerns remain, these jeremiads clearly need to be
revisited in the light of the remarkable success of Liverpool‟s year as
European Capital of Culture in 2008 with 9.7 million additional visits to
the city; an additional 1.14 million staying visitor nights in hotels; an
additional direct visitor spend of £753.8 million; and a total of over 7,000
activities, attracting an audience of 9.8 million, some 80% of whom rated
the events as „good‟ or „very good‟. After a somewhat shaky period of
preparation, Liverpool delivered what has been acknowledged as the most
successful Capital of Culture year to date. Furthermore, in order to assess
the impact of the year, Liverpool developed a rigorous, longitudinal and
holistic research methodology which will henceforth stand as the model for
cultural impact assessment. While commissioned by the City Council, the
Impacts 08 research project operated in defiantly independent and
academic manner in a joint collaboration between the University of
Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. As such, its findings –
based on research starting from the announcement of the award in 2003
and running beyond 2008 itself into 2010 – command respect. In all five
areas of the project – cultural access and participation; economy and
tourism; cultural vibrancy and sustainability; image and perceptions; and
governance and delivery process – the evidence is overwhelmingly
positive.20 Having fallen so far down the urban hierarchy – from global city
to pariah city – Liverpool did itself proud in 2008. While re-establishing
itself as a major European venue, able to attract, stage and afford the very
best national and international talent, it also looked beyond „star‟
performances and one-off celebrations to develop the audience base and
infrastructure for sustained cultural vibrancy – by the end of 2008 there
were 1683 creative industry enterprises in Liverpool. Thanks to Capital of

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 12
Culture status, external perceptions of Liverpool have improved
dramatically while, no less important, some 85% of local inhabitants agree
that the city has become a much better place since the award.
Encouraged by Liverpool‟s success, the UK government has introduced
its own City of Culture scheme on a four year cycle starting with Derry in
2013. In Liverpool itself, we are determined to build upon the dual success of
the Capital of Culture year and of the Impacts 08 research project to ensure
that the city remains at the forefront of the creative economy agenda. Hence,
very much in the spirit of Impacts 08, the two universities are continuing to
collaborate through the newly-established Institute of Cultural Capital of
which I am the interim Director. The Institute has a Board and an advisory
group (or think-tank) both of which are chaired by Phil Redmond whose
appointment as Creative Director of the Liverpool Culture Company in
September 2007 was vital in securing the success of 2008. The range of
stakeholders reflects the determination to link research, policy and practice
in the cultural city, to bring new depth and understanding to the impact of
cultural activity on health and well-being, community cohesion and social
inclusion, economic development and regeneration. Hence there will be close
liaison with the City Council and various cultural organizations, most
notably (but by no means exclusively) LARC, the Liverpool Arts
Regeneration Consortium, an alliance of the „big eight‟ cultural institutions
in the city, brought together in preparation for 2008 (National Museums
Liverpool; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; Everyman/Playhouse
Theatre; Unity Theatre; the Bluecoat; Tate Liverpool; Liverpool Biennial;
and FACT). The intrinsic aesthetic and critical value of culture will not be
ignored but the Institute recognises that in an increasingly tough economic
environment, any defence of arts, culture and creative practice will require a

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 13
robust methodology to investigate what are often called „soft‟ options within
a hard world. The interrogation of such activity and the testing of
methodologies for such interrogation is a dual aim of the Institute.
While premised upon Liverpool‟s success, the Institute is by no means
restricted to a local remit. At regional and national level, it has incorporated
the functions of the North West Culture Observatory to champion evidence,
share insight and build intellectual capacity across the cultural sector: the
Institute will be tendering to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport
for the National Management Function and as a supra–regional evidence
centre in line with requirements of the CASE Board (the Cultural and Sport
Evidence Programme). Looking beyond the UK, the 2012 London Olympics
and Cultural Olympiad, the Institute has important European aspirations
and here too hopes to meet the evident need for robust impact assessment to
underline (and defend) the value of heritage, culture and the arts.
Significantly, the Impacts 08 team were the „leading members‟ in the
European Capitals of Culture Policy Group – a network of delivery
managers and research units based in current, past and future European
Capitals of Culture (Stavanger, Linz, the Ruhr, Turku, Kosice and
Marseille) – which has recently published an „international framework of
good practice in research and delivery of the European Capital of Culture
programme‟. 21 Through its links with National Museums Liverpool, the
Institute hopes to build upon the success of the recently completed EU-
funded project involving partners from eight countries on „Entrepreneurial
Cultures in European Cities‟ with its focus on small and medium-sized
businesses and immigrant communities.22 Furthermore the Institute has
close links with the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile World Heritage Site and
its involvement in HerO, Heritage as Opportunity, a strand of the EU

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 14
Urbact Programme – the Institute was represented at the HerO „expert
workshop‟ in Lublin earlier this month on „Cultural Activities in Historic
Environment: European Heritage Label‟. The Institute is also supporting
Liverpool‟s bid to be inscribed as a UNESCO „Music City‟ through which we
hope to establish research links with the creative cities network. All this is
to suggest that after establishing itself as a cultural city, Liverpool is now
finding a role in understanding how it and other cities can assure
themselves of a creative future.

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 15
Notes

1John Belchem, Merseypride: essays in Liverpool exceptionalism (Liverpool, 2000; 2nd edition,
2006).
2 The terminology derives from Charles Landry, The Creative City: a toolkit for urban innovators
(London, 2000), p.7, essential reading for those of us involved in the working groups which helped
to prepare Liverpool‟s Capital of Culture bid.
3 „A city matured – a city reborn‟, Guardian 2, 20 Oct. 2004.
4 „Festival of the Literary and Philosophical Society‟, Daily Post 22 Feb. 1862.
5 Hilary Burrage (ed) The Hope Street Papers 2000: Art at the Heart: the role of established
cultural quarters in city renaissance, Liverpool, 2000.
6 William Enfield, An Essay towards the History of Liverpool, London, 1774, p.90.

7 Samuel Derrick, Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, the Lake of Killarney,

Dublin, Tunbridge Wells, Bath (London, 1767), pp.23-4.

8Seymour Drescher, `The Slaving Capital of the World: Liverpool and national opinion in the age
of abolition', Slavery and Abolition, 9 (1988), pp.128-143.
9 Ramsay Muir, A History of Liverpool, (London, 1907), p.293.
10See the essays marking the 150th anniversary of the Historic Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, by John Belchem (`Liverpool in 1848: image, identity and issues'), Arline Wilson, (`The
cultural identity of Liverpool, 1790-1850: the early learned societies'), and Edward Morris
(`Provincial internationalism: contemporary foreign art in nineteenth-century Liverpool and
Manchester') in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 147 (1998),
pp.1-26, 55-80 and 81-114.
11Muir, History, ch.15. C.H. Reilly, „The Changing Face of Liverpool‟ in The Book of Liverpool
(Liverpool, 1928), p.12.
12C.H. Reilly, Scaffolding in the Sky: A semi-architectural autobiography (London, 1938),
pp.248-49.
13 P.H. Rathbone, The Political Value of Art to Municipal Life (Liverpool, 1875), p. 45.
14 Muir, History, p.340.
15 Daily Post, 9 Feb. 1920.
16 Daily Mirror, 11 Oct. 1982.
17 John Belchem, „Celebrating Liverpool‟ in Belchem (ed), Liverpool 800: Culture, character and
history (Liverpool, 2006), pp55-7.
18Paul Jones and Stuart Wilks-Heeg, „Capitalising Culture: Liverpool 2008‟, Local Economy, 19
(2004), pp. 341-60, a special edition on „Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration‟. See also the
free magazine, Nerve: promoting grassroots arts and culture on Merseyside.
19Paul Du Noyer, Liverpool: Wondrous Place: Music from the Cavern to the Coral (London,
2002), p.5.
20The Impacts 08 final report, prepared by Beatriz Garcia, Ruth Melville and Tamsin Cox,
published in 2010 as Creating an impact: Liverpool‟s experience as European Capital of Culture.
21The key recommendations of the European Capitals of Culture Policy Group were published in
July 2010 as An international framework of good practice in research and delivery of the
European Capital of Culture programme.
22 Reneé E. Kistemaker and Elisabeth Tietmeyer (eds), Entrepreneurial Cultures in Europe:
Stories from seven cities, (2010)

John Belchem, From European Capital of Culture to the Institute of Cultural Capital: Liverpool and the legacy of 2008 16