Liverpool takes the European Capital of Culture mantle in 2008. Though this was meant to be the crowning glory of its renaissance, the city's citizens are in the dark about the line-up, writes David Ward.

The Mersey waterfront in Liverpool is both a world heritage site and one of the draughtiest places in Western Europe; today a biting east wind is bullying the 16 flags that line the path from the maritime museum to the Pier Head.

Look closely and you will see that each flag announces that Liverpool will be European Capital of Culture in 2008 - but also that each flag is ragged and grubby. To your right lies an empty Porsche car showroom. By now it should have been flattened to create a spectacular site for the Cloud, a shimmering building designed for this space by the architect Will Alsop. Plans for the Cloud stirred up huge controversy, not least because no one seemed to know what was going to go in the building, but they helped win Liverpool the culture title. Now it will not be built because the money for it has already been diverted to other, less iconic, projects.

Sad flags and failed ambition: inauspicious signs, with less than two years to go, for what is meant to be a year of celebration for Liverpool.

When news broke in June 2003 that Liverpool had, perhaps to its own surprise, won the big prize, the city rejoiced: this would be the crowning glory in the renaissance of a faded seaport finally stirring after a long period of decline. Everyone was behind the project.

"If one had to say one thing swung it for Liverpool, it would have to be that there was a greater sense there that the whole city is involved in the bid and behind the bid," said Sir Jeremy Isaacs, the chairman of the judges.

But what did the whole city think capital of culture was about? A glorious high-art cultural festival, a kind of year-long Edinburgh? A community knees-up that would have them dancing in the streets? Or a chance to show the world that Liverpool, a bit later than several other British cities, was heavily into economic regeneration and dockside apartments? The message was never clear - and it still isn't. Today the euphoria has faded and, with 22 months to go, it is hard to say what is actually going to happen in 2008.

WHAT HAS CERTAINLY not helped is a poisonous feud between two of the men most deeply involved in the capital of culture bid. Liverpool council's leader, Mike Storey, and the council's chief executive, Sir David Henshaw, danced with delight when Liverpool won the title. A year later, they fell out. Storey criticised Henshaw for his lack of progress on a £170 million (€250 million) tram system for Liverpool. It all went very wrong.

Storey resigned last November and Henshaw - who had also taken on the job of chief executive of the Liverpool Culture Company, which manages the 2008 project - has also decided to quit. He leaves the council this month.

While the feud has been rumbling on, other projects have faltered. The National Museums Liverpool announced a Cloud replacement, a £65 million Museum of Liverpool. But the X-shaped building came under fire for being unworthy of a world heritage site. Then the Heritage Lottery Fund - which gives away money raised by the National Lottery - turned down an application for a grant of £11.4 million to fit it out. An appeal is planned, but even if it goes ahead, the building will not be finished by 2008.

Support for 2008 is still there. But many in Liverpool are increasingly impatient to know what the big year will bring. Fear not, says the Culture Company: "Liverpool's 2008 programme will be Europe's biggest and most diverse celebration of culture, with more than 50 international festivals in art, architecture, ballet, comedy, cinema, food, literature, music, opera, science and theatre," boasts the LCC website.

Which sounds great. But this may be a triumph of aspiration over concrete detail; in private, some of the city's big cultural players are talking gloomily of a lack of substance. You would, for example, have thought that Sir Paul McCartney, who has done more for Liverpool than most, would by now have been signed up for a great 2008 gig. But nothing has been arranged.

Of course, there are plans; Robyn Archer, artistic director of Capital of Culture, is said to be scouring the world for delights to bring to Merseyside. Some things, suggesting that a broad definition is being applied to the word "culture", are known: Sir Simon Rattle, former timpanist with the Merseyside Youth Orchestra, is coming home from Berlin to conduct the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The World Firefighter Games will be coming to Liverpool, as will the European amateur boxing championships. The Open golf championship will be held at Royal Birkdale (more Southport than Liverpool), there'll be the start of the tall ships race and the end of the clipper round-the-world yacht race.

But that is about all we know with any certainty, and Archer is giving little away. When appointed in 2004, she said she had a million ideas in her head. Since then she has dropped few hints about what is to come, suggesting only that some, if not all, will be revealed in the autumn.

To the frustration of local media, Archer, an acclaimed cabaret singer and festival director, is based in Australia and will not be working full-time on the 2008 Liverpool project until April 1st. Attempts to contact her by e-mail lead only to replies from press officers in Liverpool. "She is talking and thinking 100 per cent about Liverpool, even if she isn't in the city," a spokesman says, but Liverpool's journalists are not entirely appeased by such assurances. One refers to 2008 as "capital of cobblers"; another talks of "a complete cock-up from the beginning". "There has been a massive breakdown in communications, public relations and credibility," claims a third.

What is lacking, argues Peter Kilfoyle, MP for Liverpool Walton, is clarity. "Culture Capital needs to notch its act up three gears and communicate a clearer vision to the people of Liverpool, never mind anybody else, about how this is going to be Liverpool's year of culture," he says.

David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, is confident that there is no looming 2008 crisis. "But communications need to improve from the [ Liverpool] Culture Company. In a city such as Liverpool, if people are asking questions, you have to answer them. You cannot say, 'You'll have to wait.' That's like blowing oxygen on to a fire."

With Archer unavailable, Jason Harborow is left to deal with the prophets of doom. Harborow, LCC's chief operating officer, was this week appointed its chief executive - his appointment is "interim", lasting only until the autumn.

"Twenty-two months out, we have the most organised and efficient capital of culture there has ever been," says Harborow. "The highlights of 2008 will be announced in the autumn. Never before in the history of capitals of culture has that happened. Patras [ this year's capital] has still not announced its highlights for 2006. Cork announced its programme eight weeks before the start of its year. We have always said we will not announce our artistic programme until contracts are signed and artists committed, and it would be foolish to start talking about ifs and maybes. The cultural organisations in the city have received a briefing about what our plans are and they are delighted with that."

LEWIS BIGGS, DIRECTOR of the Liverpool Biennial (which, in 2004, stirred things up a bit by hanging huge Yoko Ono posters of female breasts and pubic triangles), takes a measured view. "I think there is a lack of clear thinking about the whole situation, both within the Culture Company and those criticising the process," he says.

"It is a complicated and many-layered situation. Robyn Archer is employed to deliver an international arts festival. She isn't employed to create a programme of community development. But at the moment no distinction is being made between those things. Consequently, those looking for anarts festival say all they hear about is community things. And those who, because they live in a deprived neighbourhood, ask, 'What's in it for me?' don't know [ what to expect]. But there doesn't seem to be a recognition that there are different answers to those different questions. I'm quite sure there will be a fantastic programme in 2008 - because there is a fantastic programme most years in Liverpool which most people don't know enough about."

Time to hit the streets and look at all the cranes creating (or about to create) the new Liverpool: the £390 million arena and conference centre at King's Dock; the huge £92 million Paradise Street redevelopment scheme forging ahead across the road from the Albert Dock; the £15m cruise liner terminal on which work is due to start soon. Cranes are easier to see than cultural programmes.

At the Pier Head, Steve Cogley is checking the tickets of those about to embark on the famous Mersey ferry. Asked about capital of culture, his face lights up. "I think it's wonderful," he says. "It's putting us on the map again where we should be. It will bring improvements, give us something to be proud about, put a smile on our face. You can see what is happening already, notice the changes. We are like a phoenix rising from the ashes. I want a big party in 2008. I'm standing here in my party frock, ready to go. But we are also looking beyond 2008. It doesn't stop there. It's about what happens afterwards - more jobs, improved prospects, a better society."

- Guardian Service