City reborn
Published: 15 October, 2008
This year the BCSC marks its 25th year of representing the retail property industry and its Conference & Showcase in November will continue the celebrations at ACC Liverpool - the city's new conference and concert venue.
The event has the potential to generate around £1.5m for the Liverpool economy in just three days - based on each delegate spending an average of £500 per head.
Liverpool City Council leader Warren Bradley says: "Conference delegates always provide a welcome boost to the local economy and BCSC's Conference & Showcase is no exception - it could be one of Liverpool's largest single trade events to date.
"It's particularly appropriate that the top retailers and retail property executives from across the UK and Europe should gather in Liverpool in the same year that Grosvenor's £1bn Liverpool One opens - a development on course to propel the city's own retail offering into the top five in the UK by 2010. We look forward to welcoming them to the city."
Martyn Chase, president of BCSC, adds: "Liverpool has become a vibrant and exciting destination - not only as the European City of Culture for 2008 but also as a major centre of retail, leisure and lifestyle development. I'm delighted that we're bringing our seminal industry event to the city in our 25th anniversary year. It promises to be our best conference ever."
The three-day event, entitled 'Create', kicks off on Monday, November 10. The conference starts on the Tuesday with a line-up of speakers that includes former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine, who will draw on his extensive political experience, including the time he spent in the city following the Toxteth riots in the early 1980s. Joining him is another prominent figure who has also played important roles in Liverpool's renaissance: the Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones.
The bishop has been heavily involved in advocating community-led regeneration projects in the city. For four years he chaired the New Deal for Communities programme, and has worked with a number of agencies to establish Faiths4Change - an organisation working across the faith communities to engage local people in the transformation of their environment.
Other speakers include George Davies, fashion visionary and founder of per una, Next and George at Asda, Miles Gibson, deputy director of planning, economics and social policy at the Department for Communities and Local Government, and David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority for London 2012.
