 THE Quiggins Centre's "vital and unique role" within Liverpool's culture will be seriously damaged if it is compulsorily purchased, a public inquiry heard yesterday. Ron Griffiths, an expert in cultural regeneration, was giving evidence on behalf of the School Lane complex on the second day of a hearing into a compulsorily purchase order (CPO) sought by developer Grosvenor and Liverpool City Council. Grosvenor wants to build an arcade of exclusive shops on the Quiggins' site to carry shoppers through from Church Street to new department stores on Paradise Street, as part of its planned £750m redevelopment of Liverpool city centre. The company believes Quiggins can be re-sited elsewhere in the development area or in the wider city centre. But Mr Griffiths said any move could destroy Quiggins, which supports 45 local businesses and 250 jobs. In his evidence, he said: "It has been suggested that Quiggins will be able to find new premises in the nearby Ropewalks district, which the council envisages as the city's new creative quarter. "There are, however, some serious flaws in this proposition. "Creative enterprises do not respond well to surgical transplant procedures. "It woul d be utterly perverse to obliterate a creative enterprise that works, and hope that it can be readily established elsewhere." Mr Griffiths said that Liverpool had recognised that culture was the key to its reinvention. "The Quiggins Centre could be described as unorthodox, alternative, edgy, cosmopolitan, local-rooted. "These are not necessarily qualities that international property development companies find it easy to deal with. "But they are precisely the qualities that the city council says are central to Liverpool's cultural identity, and it is these qualities that, they claim, underpin its ambition to be a European Capital of Culture. "The city council should be using its powers to nurture the Quiggins Centre, not to threaten its continued existence." | 
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