Port Sunlight’s historic buildings, open landscapes, museums, galleries, event spaces and creative industries make the conservation area an attractive place to live, work, and visit.
The planned worker settlement’s influence on early twentieth century town planning is undeniable. However, Port Sunlight is globally unique. Architectural historian Dr Heather Alcock and Conservation and Maintenance Manager Dr Gareth Dean will lead a walking tour that highlights what sets it apart. They will also reveal the intersections and disconnections between the site’s 100 years of company stewardship and current collaborative site management practices. They will highlight the community’s century of iterative development and how it is being reshaped by and for local people and climate change resilience today.
Aside from specific built heritage policies focused on development management control and the primacy of residential uses, Port Sunlight has been excluded from forward planning in local plan development in Wirral since the 1920s. Yet Port Sunlight and heritage communities like it present opportunities for appropriate development and even transformation. The tour will introduce twenty- first century projects instigated by and for local people, improvements to management practices to support climate change resilience, adaptive reuse projects that are reinvigorating the community and both restrictions and opportunities for Port Sunlight’s future.
Event Partner:
Port Sunlight Village Trust