North Wales has done it! The slate quarrying and mining landscape here has now become a UNESCO world Heritage site. To be honest, I am not entirely sure what that means in practice. Does anything really change? I should know, as I live within the boundaries of the site. Which I should, of course; my house was built in the time that, and because, the quarry really took off, and several quarryman have lived there, and the garden is an old slate yard.
I know there are people who are afraid tourism will now get out of hand. I don't know if that is what will happen. It has been widely reported in the news that Liverpool lost its heritage status, so until this week it still had it; how many of the people who visited the historic docks would have come because of the UNESCO status? And how many because they just happened to want to come to Liverpool? And the Liverpool example also shows that you don't get extra protection with heritage status. People can still build modern developments over the top. I suppose we will have to see how this pans out…
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