The Stage

Competition launched to find UK city of culture

Published Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 17:00 by Alistair Smith

Local councils across the UK are to compete to become Britain’s ‘city of culture’, under a new scheme which aims to build on the success enjoyed by Liverpool’s arts organisations during its stint as European Capital of Culture in 2008.

The initiative, which was launched this week by culture secretary Ben Bradshaw and Phil Redmond - a key figure in Liverpool 2008 - will see conurbations across the British Isles bidding to stage the year-long event in 2013. If it proves successful, a new city will be chosen to hold the title every four years.

Bradshaw said the aim of the project was to boost the profile of the arts outside London and the capital would be excluded from bidding.

He added: “Culture is something that we are incredibly good at in the UK. But excellence and innovation in the arts does not begin and end inside the M25 and I believe we have been too London-centric for too long in our cultural life. So this competition aims to find a city or area outside London that has the wow factor, with exciting and credible plans to make a step change in its cultural life and engage the whole country.”

The successful city will not receive any additional funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but will be expected to attract sponsorship and other private funding to help support the event, using the cache of its ‘city of culture’ title. Events such as the Turner Prize, Stirling Prize, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and possibly the Brits and the Bafta TV Awards will be relocated from London to the successful city. Both the BBC and Channel 4 have also committed to ongoing coverage of the celebrations.

Bidders have until October 16 to submit an outline application, with a deadline of December 11 for finalised bids. A shortlist will be announced early next year, with a final decision expected later in 2010.

Redmond, who has expressed a desire to chair the panel of assessors who will decide on the winning city, said the victor could expect “a minimum of around £100 million in media exposure”. He also stressed that even those who lost out would see new cultural networks developed within the cities, thanks to having to work together for the bidding process.

“We’re looking to 2013 for the first city and we’ll have to be pragmatic - it will probably go to one of the larger conurbations because they will be the ones who will already have the cultural network or the infrastructure network to support the bid,” he added.

Durham has become the first city to announce an expression of interest in running for the 2013 title.