LIVERPOOL’S showcase visitor centre is in the wrong place and should be closed as soon as the city council can get out of the lease, an inquiry has heard.

Tourism leader Cllr Gary Millar said the council needed an exit strategy for when the £220,000-a-year lease ends in 2014, or try and negotiate for someone else to take over the lease earlier.

He revealed the council had had an agreement with Business Link North West to take over the space – which has been open just four years – but that it had fallen through due to the organisation’s concerns over the recession.

Pam Wilsher, acting director of tourism at the official tourist board, The Mersey Partnership, also told the inquiry into the 08 Place that Whitechapel was not the right place for the city’s main tourist information centre.

She said it should be located next to public transport hubs and that, when the city’s main tourist information point was in Queen Square, it had more visitors.

Yesterday, the Daily Post carried out a snap poll just 10 yards from the venue, and only two of eight people questioned could even say where the 08 Place was.

The inquiry, which reports at the end of this month, is likely to recommend that the 08 Place should be scrapped and replaced with a number of smaller information points at key locations like Lime Street Station and Liverpool One.

But it will say that this cannot be done until the 10-year lease expires, as that would leave the council with huge costs for cancelling the contract.

The inquiry was set up amid fears the 08 Place no longer serves a useful purpose and cannot be afforded after the end of Capital of Culture.