The controversial Policy Exchange report has met with derision from academics and politicians, as Ben Schofield hears

LIVERPOOL flung open its doors yesterday and urged the critics who said the city’s regeneration was failing to “come here and see for themselves”.

Civic leaders urged the academics who claimed Liverpool had “lost its raison d’etre” to visit the city because “seeing is believing”.

Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange told Liverpudlians they should move to London, Oxford or Cambridge because then they would have better prospects.

But yesterday city academics tore shreds out of their Cities Unlimited report. One labelled it only worthy of a “naive undergraduate” and another dismissed it as “teenage scribblings”.

The document said it was not sensible to build any more houses in Liverpool, but 3m more should be constructed in the South East.

Liverpool should expect to lose half its population because the only way to combat the North-South divide was for mass internal migration, according to the report.

That was because Liverpool, as a former port city, would only continue to struggle in an economy driven by road haulage and air freight.

Dr Tim Leunig, Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich and James Swaffield wrote the report, the third in a trilogy assessing urban Britain.

But Professor David Robertson, director of Liverpool John Moores University’s institute for public policy research, said he would take them on if they showed up to a public debate.

And deputy leader of Liverpool City Council Flo Clucas urged the authors to tour the city.

She told the Daily Post: “Come and see what the state of play is. I would be perfectly happy to welcome (Policy Exchange chairman Charles) Moore or the authors of the report.

“I want them to come here and I want them to see how we’ve done things.”

Lorraine Rogers, chief executive of inward investment agency The Mersey Partnership (TMP), said the research was “miles off course”.

She added: “I’d welcome them here to see the city region for themselves, and see what TMP members representing the private and public sectors are achieving together.

“In our experience, it’s always a matter of ‘seeing is believing’.

“We have plenty for the Policy Exchange to see – it’s up to them whether they believe the evidence.”