Wrexham misses out on chance to host City of Culture 2025

Wrexham has narrowly missed out on the chance to City of Culture 2025.

The town / soon to be city, lost out to Bradford to host the event in four years time as announced by Nadine Dorries above.

News that they had won the bid for City of Culture 2025 was announced live on the One Show this evening.

For the first time in the history of the UK City of Culture competition, each of the runners up will also receive a grant of £125,000 to support the bidding team in taking forward some of the most exciting elements of the bid.

It marks the end of months of events that have taken place to showcase to the judges all that Wrexham has to offer, with the town-soon-to-be-city beating expectations to make the final four.

Wrexham Council have said, ” We would like firstly to congratulate Bradford in winning the title as we know how much hard work is involved and we’re sure that Bradford will make a great success of their year as UK City of Culture. We look forward to visiting in 2025.”

“As a county, and as a community, this competition has brought us all closer together and helped us realise just how special Wrexham is. We all have different backgrounds and different stories, but once we start joining the dots, we’re a strong, supportive and resilient community who look out and support each other.”

“The work and achievements of the past few months has put us on a new trajectory that we aim to build upon over the coming years, creating an even more thriving community and generating opportunities in the process.”

Joanna Swash, CEO of Moneypenny and chair of Wrecsam City of Culture steering group said: “We’ve achieved so much in this short amount of time and have witnessed an outpouring of community and business support for the bid. “We’ve shown just how much drive and potential that Wrexham has to offer and we have a strong platform to build on this further in terms of culture, skills and innovation in our county.”

Cllr Mark Pritchard, Leader of Wrexham County Borough Council said: “ It has been a great to see our many achievements, community engagement and support for the bid, but for now, we will no longer proceed in the competition and wish Bradford the best of luck in their year as UK City of Culture in 2025 . “We have now achieved city status for Wrexham and we look forward to realising the benefits that this will bring.”

Chair of Wrexham County Borough Council City of Culture steering group Cllr Hugh Jones said: “As the only region on the shortlist from Wales, we flew the flag for our country as well as Wrexham. Achieving shortlist status has helped us raise the profile of Wrexham, but it’s also sparked momentum and given us a platform to build on for future.”

Ian Bancroft, Chief Executive of Wrexham County Borough Council, said: “We have a much better understanding of what Wrexham culture is, and what culture means to Wrexham. “Culture plays a part in people’s daily lives and has a capacity to change and improve our surroundings and wellbeing. “We need to ensure that the links made during this competition as well as the learnings from it are not lost, and head towards a future where culture plays a key role in our planning and decision making for the benefit of our county.”

Wrexham Council have also announced “work that will now take place” including “Committing to a significant event programme in 2023 and 2025”, “Publicising an update on what this will look like by July 2022”, “Use the momentum generated as part of the bit to take the county forward”, “further develop the important role that play has in Wrexham.”

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said: “Congratulations to Bradford, which is a worthy winner of UK City of Culture 2025.

“Art and culture should be accessible to everyone and this prestigious title will help Bradford deliver unforgettable events for communities on their doorstep.

“There was stiff competition and I thank County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham County Borough for their excellent bids.

“Coventry has shown us how powerful the UK City of Culture title is at boosting investment, attracting visitors and leaving a lasting legacy for local people.”

Sir Phil Redmond, Chair of the Independent Advisory Panel, said: “The selection is never about whether one bid is better than another, it is more that one bid has the potential to make a bigger and deliverable impact. For 2021 we asked Coventry to raise the bar previously set by Derry-Londonderry 2013 and then raised by Hull 2017. Challenged by the pandemic, Coventry have certainly done that and I am looking forward to seeing how far the cultural bar can be raised in BD25.”

More reaction shortly…