Graeme Shankland, (1917–1984), was an English town planner active in the 1960s. With Oliver Cox he established the partnership Shankland, Cox and Associates which under took commissions from

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 23 May 1995) was a British statesman and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 197 ...

's Labour government. He played a principal role in drawing up the modernisation plans for

Hook, Hart Hook is a civil parish and large village in the Hart District of northern Hampshire, England. It is situated east of Basingstoke and northeast of Southampton, on the A30 national route, just north of Junction 5 of the M3 motorway. Londo ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. However, local opposition successfully thwarted these plans.

Early life

Graeme was born on 31 January 1917 in

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

. His father, Ernest Shankland, was the Assistant Marine Surveyor for the

Mersey Docks and Harbour Company The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC), formerly the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB), owns and administers the dock facilities of the Port of Liverpool, on the River Mersey, England. These include the operation of the enclosed north ...

. His mother was Violet Cooper (née Lindsay). The family moved to London in 1923. His father was appointed Chief Harbour Master at the

Port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Se ...

in 1926. He attended

Stowe School The Stowe School is a public school (English private boarding school) for pupils aged 13–18 in the countryside of Stowe, England. It was opened on 11 May, 1923 at Stowe House, a Grade I Heritage Estate belonging to the British Crown. ...

followed by

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the R ...

, graduating in Architecture and Design in 1940. During this period he attended lectures by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

and developed an interest in

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

. He had already developed an interest in

town planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and joined

William Holford William Graham Holford, Baron Holford, (22 March 1907 – 17 October 1975) was a British architect and town planner. Biography Holford was educated at Diocesan College, Cape Town and returned to Johannesburg. From 1925–30 he studied archi ...

in a team designing hostels for factory workers. In 1942 he joined the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

and the Communist Party. Having seen active service in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and Malaya he was demobbed in 1946.

Career

Liverpool City Centre Plan

In the 1960s, Shankland advised

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Liverpool has had a local authority since 1207, which has been reformed on numerous ...

on urban renewal. In his words, Liverpool was "glaringly obsolete". The final Liverpool City Centre Plan of 1965 declared two-thirds of the city's buildings obsolete and proposed road building on a huge scale, but also recognised that Liverpool had an outstanding Victorian architecture that should be preserved. In Shankland's panorama of the future city centre, a large public square has taken the place of St John's Gardens. The five 21-storey towers of the proposed Strand-Paradise Street housing and retail development were never built, and the

Liverpool One Liverpool ONE is a shopping, residential, and leisure complex in Liverpool, England. The project involved the redevelopment of 42 acres (170,000 m2) of land in Liverpool City Centre, the city centre. It is a retail-led development anchored by ...

shopping centre now occupies part of the site. Shankland foresaw Liverpool’s potential as a tourist destination and worked alongside Liverpudlian architectural historian Quentin Hughes, whose advocacy for architectural conservation was adopted as official policy in 1967. Shankland's redevelopment vision for Liverpool ultimately faltered due to a lack of funding, although not before approximately 30,000 habitable homes were demolished and the city's population was nearly reduced by half.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shankland, Graeme 1917 births 1984 deaths English urban planners Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge People educated at Stowe School