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Liverpool has been stripped of its coveted world heritage status after Unesco blamed years of development for an “irreversible loss” to the historic value of its Victorian docks, the Guardian reports.

The UN’s heritage body concluded at a meeting in China on Wednesday that the “outstanding universal value” of Liverpool’s waterfront had been destroyed by new buildings, including Everton football club’s new £500m stadium.

The decision is a humiliating blow for the city and gives Liverpool the ignominious distinction of being only the third place to lose the status in nearly 50 years. The other delisted sites were Oman’s Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in 2007 and the Dresden Elbe valley in Germany in 2009.

Liverpool has enjoyed world heritage status since 2004 – placing it alongside the Taj Mahal and Great Wall of China – as recognition for its role as a major trading power during the British empire and the architectural beauty of its waterfront.

The label gives historic sites access to UN conservation funding and protection under the Geneva conventions in the event of war, as well as featuring in tourist guidebooks across the world.

The threat of being delisted has hung over Liverpool since 2012 as Unesco warned that development had significantly changed the city’s skyline and was destroying the heritage value of its waterfront.

The decision was announced by Tian Xuejun, the chair of the Unesco world heritage committee, at a virtual conference hosted in China on Wednesday.

The UN agency said development such as Liverpool Waters, a £5.5bn project by Peel Group to transform previously disused land, had led to a “serious deterioration and irreversible loss” to the area’s outstanding universal value along with “significant loss to its authenticity and integrity”.

It said that as a result of these projects the waterfront had “deteriorated to the extent that it has lost characteristics” that led to its inclusion on the world heritage list in 2004.