Benefits and Disbenefits of World Heritage Status to:

• Local Residents
• Londoners
• Overseas visitors

The UNESCO World Heritage List was started, in 1972, as part of the United Nations endeavour to maintain international peace and security, and develop friendly relations among nations. The history of the UN and UNESCO need to be kept in mind. The UN was established as the Second World War was drawing to a close. It was a successor to the League of Nations, which had failed to keep the peace after the First World War. The two wars had engendered a sense, heightened by satellite views of The Earth in the 1960s, that we belong to One World and a Family of Man. At the start of the twenty-first century, partly as a reaction, there is also a growing awareness of the different concerns of separate cultural groups, nations, cities, families and individuals. World Heritage Status can be considered from various standoints.

Does the influx of visitors benefit local residents?

Local Residents

• It is flattering to know that the area in which one lives is important to the world's cultural heritage
• More people will be attracted to the area and house prices will rise. This is an advantage for residents who wish to sell and move elsewhere but a disadvantage for incomers and  the children of local residents who wish to buy property in the area.
• More tourists will be drawn to the area. This benefits local shops, hotels and restaurants but it causes congestion and makes private travel within the area more difficult. It may however make public transport (eg bus services and the Docklands Light Railway) more economic.

Londoners

The pattern of advantages and disadvantates for Londoners resembles that for local residents, but they probably gain more from benefits to the London economy than they lose from the disbenefits. Yet the tourists drawn to Greenwich may be diverted from other parts of London.

Overseas visitors

Overseas visitors presumably gain from the existence of a well-serviced attraction but may have different views on the original designation, because of the association between Greenwich and Britain's naval and imperial past.