The Cathedral also has close links with the universities in the city. For example, graduation ceremonies take place
in the Cathedral, the work of architectural students is displayed in the Cathedral, and the Cathedral has provided
grant funding towards PhD students researching the social history of the Cathedral.
Over 200 people volunteered at the Cathedral during 2019, performing a wide range of activities from welcoming
visitors to embroidery. Volunteers have noted that as well as feeling as though they are giving back to the
community, they also benefit from their volunteering activities themselves, as it enables them to socialise and feel
part of a community, benefiting their wellbeing. This tends to be particularly true for the older volunteers, many of
whom reported to interviewees that they often felt isolated before becoming volunteers. Those who become
volunteers via the Micah Liverpool charity also find it beneficial to mix with the other volunteers and cathedral
employees, who expose them to new networks and experiences of employment.
Through its links with Micah Liverpool, the Cathedral also supports food bank services, which operate two days a
week and provide packages with three days of emergency food for each guest. These foodbanks operate out of
two churches in Liverpool and support over 300 people per week. Micah Liverpool also runs four community
markets, one of which takes place at Liverpool Cathedral twice a week. Each of the community markets offers
food, deemed to be surplus to requirement by supermarkets, for sale at below market rate prices. The main aim
is to support people who may be on the brink of using foodbanks.
Impact of COVID-19
Restrictions around COVID-19 have drastically reduced the number of visitors the Cathedral saw in 2020, which
is estimated to have fallen to around 200,000, despite interviewees reporting the Cathedral is well regarded as a
safe place to visit because of the covid protection measures it has introduced. Interviewees reported that this,
along with the postponing and cancelling of corporate dinners, exhibits, and other events and ceremonies, has
had a large impact on the Cathedral’s finances and future plans.
Due to the large scale of the Cathedral building, the financial demands in terms of upkeep are large and
interviewees stressed that the Cathedral has focused on becoming self-sufficient, with employees of the Cathedral
noting that by 2019 the Cathedral had reached revenue breakeven point. Maintaining this is a key aim of the
Cathedral, and pre-COVID the Cathedral was well placed to continuing improving its financial position, which would
enable it to further expand its community-based offering.
In particular, the Cathedral had put in place a goal of increasing visitor numbers up to 1 million a year by 2024,
representing a 25% growth on the 2019 figures, thereby make the Cathedral’s operating plan completely
sustainable. While this was always an ambitious target, the Cathedral was building up a programme of events and
pre-COVID was on track to meet this goal. However, those interviewed expect COVID to not only influence visitor
and event numbers in 2020, but to have a long-running effect in terms of people feeling less secure in travelling
internationally and nationally, and in visitor numbers being limited by necessary social distancing constraints. Due
to these limitations, the Cathedral also envisages a long-running fall in the amount of business it sees from hosting
international conference dinners and cooperate dinners, which previously helped the Cathedral raise a significant
amount of funding. These international conferences typically take two to three years to plan, so there will be a lag
before they start up again. Cathedral employees also noted in interviews that they expect Brexit to have a further
damping effect on international visitors and conferences.
As such, interviewees see the recent changes as a structural shift rather than just a short-term cash flow problem,
and the Cathedral has revised its business plan accordingly. In the main this has involved bringing forward changes
it was planning to implement over the longer term – in particular switching from hosting corporate to public events,
and a focus on increasing visitor numbers from the city and region to become a cathedral for the city, rather than
for the international visitor. While these are changes the Cathedral wanted to implement anyway, the effects of
COVID have forced the need to focus on them immediately.