The Stage

Margaret Hodge announces longlist for UK City of Culture

Published Tuesday 15 December 2009 at 16:20 by Alistair Smith

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has announced the final 14 sites in the running to become UK City of Culture in 2013.

The long-list is Barnsley, Hull, Birmingham, Ipswich and the Haven Gateway, Carlisle, Norwich, Chichester, Portsmouth and Southampton, Cornwall, Sheffield, Derry, Southend, Durham and Swansea.

Meanwhile, Hodge also announced the judging panel, chaired by Phil Redmond, who will make the final recommendation on which area should win The panel members are Derrick Anderson, John Ashton, Anna Carragher, Margaret Evans, Lauren Laverne, Rotha Johnston, Robert Palmer.

They will meet in February to consider the bids and recommend a short-list to culture secretary Ben Bradshaw in the spring.

The competition to find the UK’s first City of Culture was launched in July this year. 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.