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Its critics may not know that the European Union provides funding for some extraordinarily creative exchanges of experience on heritage management and economic development between local authorities in Europe and Asia, which will bear fruit long term, with both physical and social outcomes
For the past eighteen months Portsmouth City Council has been working with partners Xingcheng in north east China, and led by the local authority in Obidos Portugal, in the EU Asia Urbs project. This focuses on management of each city's built heritage, including the ancient city walls, exploring how income from tourism can be directed into physical regeneration to improve living conditions for local people.
This is a particular challenge for Xingcheng, a city of half a million on the coast of Liaoning Province in what used to be called Manchuria. Of the four ancient Chinese cities with complete walls, Xingcheng is the best-preserved Ming-dynasty fortified city in China. The walls were built in 1428 as a garrison town north of the Great Wall and rebuilt in 1623. What makes Xingcheng special today is that the walls enclose dense streets of single storey houses with curved Liaoning style roofs and gables - a pattern which survives nowhere else in China. When you first discover the ancient city behind the unprepossessing modern town, you get a visceral thrill – a real glimpse of the old China. But 700 of those who live within the walls have no running water, and more have no internal sanitation. Their houses are heated with coal from the local mines, with consequent pollution, and the ugly modern city encroaches too close to the walls, so that they are hard to see as you approach, and the vital view to the local volcanic mountain and coast is impeded.
Expert conservation planners are encouraging the Xingcheng People's Municipal government to operate their strict conservation controls to remove unsightly modern development, bury overhead wires, improve drainage, install gas heating, restore their historic buildings, and arrange events such as the planned Walled City Festival in mid-September to extend the very short tourist season currently based on the nearby beach resort. Inside the city are the magical Confucius Temple, the City God Temple – whose fierce image is paraded yearly – and General Gao's house of the 1920s. The Zhou House, which belonged to a silk merchant in 1934 has been beautifully restored as offices for the Asia Urbs project. It will be an appropriate Visitor Centre to introduce the Walled City and with ideas gained from Portsmouth and Obidos. Its restoration is also an exemplar for other building owners. With colleagues from Obidos and Portsmouth the Xingcheng group including the Deputy Mayor who is in charge of the project have toured other walled cities in Asia and Europe to gain ideas and learn from their experience. Workshops about achievements of each local government – in Xingcheng and Obidos - culminated in one held at the end of June in Portsmouth, when the party arrived from Caen - in the middle of the re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar!
In two days of intensive exchanges, the participants examined conservation experiences in Old Portsmouth; the development of Gunwharf; the planning of special events such as planning, marketing and post event surveys - for example the extraordinarily successful Chocolate Festival in Obidos in November. The delegates heard how the success of the economy of Portsmouth is measured and how it can be expanded and made to prosper; about Portsmouth's tourism strategy and how its attractiveness is enhanced to visitors; attract sponsorship for major tourist and heritage celebrations. They and reviewed progress on the project so far, and what still has to be done before it ends this December. Members of the Portsmouth Chinese Association were genial guides at the social events.
The climax for all was of course the Fleet Review, fireworks and the Festival of the Sea, where delegates enjoyed the hospitality of the Naval Base Property Trust in the brilliantly converted Boathouse 6. They enjoyed a special boat trip in the Trust's launch to view the tall ships at close quarters. No-one could have failed to be impressed by the immense organisation which went into organising such massive events!
I spent an extraordinary two weeks in Xingcheng in June, helping with preparations for the Portsmouth workshop, the editing of a beautifully illustrated guide, and visiting and writing about the special attractions in the area including the Jiumenkou section of the Great Wall where it crosses a river before the final stretch to the sea for the Rough Guide and similar travel books. We hope to put Xingcheng on the tourist map, which it isn't at present. A Portsmouth businessman, Mr. Kam Patel who recently started up a new company "Go to China" was introduced to the Xingcheng Deputy Mayor. We hope that he will be able to put together tours to the Walled City, so that we can all go and enjoy its special treasures.
Celia Clark