Liverpool has been stripped of its World Heritage status after Unesco voted 13 to five in favour of the measure at a meeting in China this morning.

The city had been engaged in a decade-long battle with the UN cultural body whose world heritage committee said that too many inappropriate developments had been built around its historic waterfront.

Today’s vote was a confirmation of a report published last month that recommended the punishment – which has only been meted out to two other world heritage sites since the system began in 1978.

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