I'd be interested to see how they feel wetland habitats popular with migrating wading birds along the west coast of the North Sea is underrepresented when more iconic versions of the same alongside its southern and Eastern coasts are already inscribed as the Wadden Sea. I also want to understand why Chatham Dockyard didn't make the cut - I regard it as a perfectly valid bid and (in light of the current blog post on the value of TWHSs) one of a very, very small number of locations I have visited precisely because of its TWHS status.

Thanks for alerting us!

@Liam
From your earlier post you would seem to have been in contact (and could still be?) with the Port Sunlight team. Do you know what they have been/expect to be, told about the conclusions of the process? The previous T List exercise report from 2011 WAS published and I made a FOI request to the Dept of Culture who provided the original submissions by sites wanting to be added - it would be nice to have both again for the most recent exercise

Solivagant
I haven't, I'm afraid. I may pop over during the summer holidays though. I felt Port Sunlight had put together a reasonably convincing case for inscription - I certainly haven't seen the same amount of detail from the Birkenhead Park team.

Interestingly, despite the final list being named, I note that Hampden Park etc are still actively campaigning for WHS status: https://queensparkfc.co.uk/the-3-hampdens-and-unesco-world-heritage-site-mission/ A lot of this seems highly associative however (the cemetery where the first Secretary of the Scottish Football Association is buried, the birthplace of 'the father of Argentinian football', a pub named after a woman who won the precursor to the World Cup in 1984...

I don't know any detail, just spit balling really, but Chatham has been on the t-list since 1999, it has had quarter of a century to get something moving and it hasn't come to fruition, perhaps the decision was made to focus on projects that will gain a bit more traction.

It seems a shame, Chatham really is a well preserved example of a British dockyard from when it was a, perhaps even the global naval superpower. It is something that isn't fully represented on the list, Antigua Naval Dockyard and Karlskrona are broadly in this vein, but the sparse reality of the sites suggest they are someway short of what Chatham would bring.

Speaking from a purely selfish perspective it may open up my little hometown pet project and the chance of Portsmouth resurrecting a future bid (it was discouraged during the 2012 update thanks to Chatham's place on the t-list). Portsmouth's Historic dockyard isn't preserved to the same level as Chatham (although it still is impressive), but its a more important site, and I think a proposal to focus on the broader naval defensive landscape from the Roman era Portchester Castle, and the Napoleonic era ring of defences in the Solent, and on Portsdown hill plus Southwick House the operations centre for the D-Day landings would actually be a really good WHS.


Fair play to them for carrying on, and it seems a genuinly interesting idea. But even as someone fully in the corner of this propossal I can't see it ever becoming a WHS for the reason you point out.

Possibly a bit hard on Chatham - I also don't know the detail but it would seem that 2011 was the highwater mark of Chatham's bid - it had got though the UK T List review process, had good support from local councils and other required bodies .... and even had a Project officer, Web site and Newsletter!!!
It all seems to have come tumbling down in 2014 when its bid to be put forward as UKs Nomination failed for the 2nd time. The first had been in 2012 in favour of the Forth Bridge and then, on the second occasion in 2014 the Lake District nipped in!!
See this
From that point any history of the bid on the Web is noticeably missing. Perhaps they got the "message", people moved on etc etc
We don't even know if they applied again at the most recent T List review

Oh yep reading that back it looks a little harsher on screen than it was in my head.

I was trying to get to something like your final conclusion that maybe after 25 years they got the message that it unfortunatly wasn't really going to lead anywhere, rather than throwing shade on Chatham's efforts.

I found this within the minutes of a Medway Council Meeting of Jan 2015. It confirms my suggestion above that Chatham "gave up" pursuing a nomination as long ago as 2014 after twice being trumped by other sites and didn't even try to get onto UK's 2023 revised T List. It would appear that it had been unable to satisfy DCMS that there was an "adequate balance between regeneration and heritage" in the site/Medway area for WHS purposes -

"In January 2014 the Chatham World Heritage Steering Group (now the Chatham Dockyard and its Defences Heritage Co-ordination Group):
a. noted that the international significance of Chatham's heritage was not in doubt
b. noted that it was satisfied that the balance sought and achieved between regeneration and heritage in Medway was appropriate
c. expressed disappointment that this view had not been supported nationally, or challenged on an earlier occasion.
d. agreed that it would not continue to pursue a World Heritage Site nomination.
e. noted that the Planning Policy Document remained highly valuable

In September 2014 the Chatham Dockyard and its Defences Heritage Coordination Group tasked the Heritage and Social Regeneration Manager with preparing the document for formal adoption, taking into account the comments received during consultation, and reflecting revised site nomenclature by removing references to World Heritage Site status. "

Another example of "official" T Lists not being kept up-to-date by States Parties! Or maybe Chatham was so fed up with DCMS that it didn't even inform it.

You are Dan Snow @thehistoryguy and I claim my prize!

2014: Medway Council concludes it will never get government support for a WHS bid, neighbouring Conservative MP defects to UKIP, forcing PM David Cameron to promise an in/out referendum on UK membership of the EU. Who knows what might have happened if Chatham's bid had progressed instead of the Lake District...!

:) sadly not, though if he wants to direct some of that podcast money my way to set up the campaign for a place on the next t-list I wouldn't be rude enough to say no.

Suddenly the PhD thesis, Tebay Services and their role in Brexit has more evidence to investigate.

1) please rename topic to United Kingdom (UK) or something ss it's otherwise too short to search for.

2) silly Zoë question: the UK and Overseas Territories do not include the Crown Dependencies. However, there is a biosphere on the Isle of Man so I'm confused. Also the address for admin
https://en.unesco.org/biosphere/eu-na/isle-of-man
is Isle of Man, United Kingdom. Feel like this is telling someone from Dublin that his country is part of Great Britain instead of the British Isles. Anyhow, so any inscriptions for the Crown Dependencies would just fall under the UK?

No! And neither are the Channel islands
But don't look for tidy logic on the matter. This document provides a reasonably short explanation of the relationship between Crown Dependencies and the UK. Note in particular Section 4 on "international Personality".... "The Crown Dependencies are not recognised internationally as sovereign States in their own right but as "territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible". As such they cannot sign up to international agreements under their own aegis but can have the UK's ratification of such instruments extended to them, and can sign specific international agreements if they have been entrusted to do so by the UK"

The Isle of Man has tried to obtain a WHS on several occasions - St Patrick's Isle (Peel Castle) and Cregneash are both "Former TWHS" and the Tynwald was associated with other Viking Parliamentary sites for a "Thing" nomination and applied in 2011 to be on the UK T List . I cant find chapter and verse but I am pretty sure that the Laxey wheel has thought of applying - an amazing structure which, IMO, is as good as e.g Vizcaya Bridge or the 4 Lifts....
Again, I cant find details at the moment but I am sure that St Peter Port Guernsey has in the distant past either applied for T List ...or seriously progressed it.

I personally feel that the more widely framed mixture of nature and human activity recognised by the World Biosphere Reserve scheme fits the IoM rather well.....
Are you thinking of going to IoM?? We spent 5 days there this April and can provide up to date info if you would like......


Do you mean the Country code top level domain name as in @gov.im??
Jersey has ".je" whilst Guernsey has ".gg". So, if you want to contact the government of Guernsey it is contact@gov.gg. The Guernsey one also currently covers the other Channel islands of Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou and Lihou - though Sark is trying hard to get its own!!!

The fact that you are enter a different "jurisdiction" when visiting these islands has some unexpected impacts - for instance the IoM is in a different mobile "roaming" area from UK!!!

The link has the admin postal address as "Isle of Man, United Kingdom" which seems wrong but I suppose nobody complained about it being wrong.

Went to Laxey Wheel today. Marvel indeed and they finished renovation last year making it look brand new. Would think it has a good chance to be inscribed. Overall the Isle of Man has enough to show for even though most people dismiss it as a Manx TT only attraction. Currently staying on Cregneash.

Funny you mention the roaming as today I got a text that "Roaming information for your stay in GUERNSEY" lol (did also received an Isle of Man text)

Here is the detail of its attempt for the 2011 UK T List update. THE Committee of "experts" said it wasn't important enough.........

Hope you manage to see the Manx Cat (tailless!!!) at Cregneash .....we did! Try the farm.. the working one not the museum is more likely.

Are you visiting anywhere else in UK .... let us know if you are coming across to the North East Coast or Yorkshire!!!

PS For the record here is the text of the decision re Laxey. The proposal was for the Laxey Valley as a whole - Possibly a mistake but surely ICOMOS would have expected the surroundings to be included. But at least it could have been oriented primarily at the Wheel and titled e.g "Laxey Wheel with its Mining Landscape" rather than simply "The Laxey Valley"?
"B. The Panel's response
The Panel noted that there were many examples of the lead industry and of mining landscapes, some of which were already on the World Heritage List, and considered that the Laxey Valley was of local and national interest rather than global.
Recommendation
The Panel judged that The Laxey Valley did not have the potential to demonstrate OUV and recommends that The Laxey Valley should not be included in the Tentative List."
NO mention of the World's largest surviving water wheel or of any comparison made with other inscribed industrial constructions in order to inform the conclusion!!!! IMO - a missed opportunity.

Ditto for the North West. Planning on a return trip to Jodrell Bank over next weekend (other day will be Port Sunlight which failed to make the T-list this year).

Jumping back on this because I have visited Port Sunlight this weekend. From the people I talked to at the museum, no one knows precisely why their bid was knocked back. Their understanding is that they were informed of the non-progression of the bid verbally and that there was nothing critical that torpedoed their bid, just that UK Gov is being very stringent on a limited T-List. If there has been any formal written response this has not made it down to the curators and guides I spoke to.