CHESTER has lost out to Liverpool and Manchester because of poor leadership, regeneration experts have said.

The city’s political and business leaders had invited the nine-strong panel from the Urban Land Institute to the city to help them find ways to stop the city’s decline.

It is the first UK city to seek their help and the panel of experts had spent last week exploring the city and interviewing local people before presenting their findings at Chester Town Hall.

Jim DeFrancia, chair of the panel and CEO of Lowe Enterprises, USA, said they had been asked to look at how Chester can make itself a distinctive destination, improve tourism and business while at the same time ensuring it is an attractive place to live.

He said they had found the city had seen 51 different “grand plans” over the years to improve it, of which little had come to fruition, and said the perception was that Chester is disjointed and fragmented.

During their two-hour presentation to the public – which included business and political leaders – the panel presented the city with some harsh judgments but insisted Chester has “much unrealised potential”.

Panel member Rupert Nabarro said: “You are facing much more competition – Liverpool and Manchester have got their act together. You have to fight back based on what you have got.”

He said the city was too dependent on “cheap alcohol to sustain the night-time economy”.

“This is Chester – is this how you want to present yourself? You are competing lower down the market than your brand suggests. Chester is seen as aristocratic.”