Dreams of Helicopter Travel in the 1950s and Liverpool's Undeveloped Plans for a City Centre Heliport

The paper considers schemes for city centre heliports in the 1950s and early 1960s, an aspect of unbuilt transport infrastructure that was widely envisaged would radically improve urban mobility and intercity travel. The exploitation of the air space immediately above the city provided the potential to solve the congestion on the streets below. The helicopter was a thrillingly modern technology in this period, with its ability to hover and land vertically right in the heart of cities. The paper uses original case studies relating to heliport planning in London and Liverpool drawing on unpublished primary archival materials