The new museum obscures that view and NML was forced to negotiate with Downing to have the covenant lifted. The company insisted NML pay £750,000, which it did.

As we would expect from the so-called business-friendly city Downing has come under fire for its stance.

In my view, Downing was in the right. It had something NML wanted, it set a price it considered reasonable and NML paid up. That's business.

I've written on this blog before that Liverpool needs to start getting its head around how business works.

We always seem to have our hand out - we wanted £20m extra for Capital of Culture, more than £400m for the ridiculous Merseytram folly and wanted the Government to disregard competition rules and allow our partly state-funded cruise liner terminal to be able to compete with private ones.

We need more entrepreneurial companies like Downing driving our economy forward and fewer public sector handouts for grandiose projects.

The new Museum of Liverpool is a fantastic scheme but museums don't drive economies. That's the job of the private sector.

Downing has invested tens of millions of pounds in this city on commercial property projects that will help bring inward investment. The money they got from NML can only help them do more of that.

They are a great Liverpool business success story and should be applauded, not criticised.