“It will be brilliant” – First Minister backs Wrexham’s UK City of Culture 2025 bid

The First Minister has said he is ‘very keen’ to support Wrexham’s UK City of Culture 2025 bid.

Yesterday the First Minister was in Wrexham ‘on the beat’ with local policing teams, and we caught up with him for a few minutes and asked him his thoughts on Wrexham’s UK City of Culture 2025 bid.

Wrexham made it through to the next round of the competition, and made it on to an eight strong longlist including other non-cities such as Cornwall and Stirling.

Every four years, a town or city is given the title – helping to raise its profile, boost its local economy and highlight everything that’s good about the location, and often triggering a range of investment.

Wrexham is the only Welsh entry on the longlist, and would be the first Welsh holder of the title.

The First Minister Mark Drakeford said, “We are very keen to support that.”

“I think that from our point of view, it is a very straightforward bid that we are keen on.”

“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if it came to Wales? It has never come to Wales, we have come close a few times.”

“Wrexham will be the standard bearer for Wales in the next part of the competition”

“We see what it has done in other places in terms of a long term investment, the legacy, that it leaves behind. There are loads of jobs to be found in that sector, and if we could get that to happen in Wrexham…. it will be brilliant.”

We also asked the First Minister about the entirely separate, although similarly named, City Status bid that has recently got the majority backing of the Full Council – with a less committed response, “I take my guide in all of that from my colleague, Lesley Griffiths (Wrexham’s MS).

“I was talking to her about it this week, and she was telling me some of the things that she’s looking at and thinking about. So when it comes to it, if Lesley thinks it’s a good idea that I’m sure I will too.”