Ben Bradshaw, the Culture Secretary, has announced that a competition is to be held to find the UK’s first ‘City of Culture’:

“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.”

Birmingham’s bid to be the 2008 European Capital of Culture went horribly wrong (despite us serving up Balti to the panel of judges) with the prestigious title going to Liverpool. And although the award doesn’t bring any extra funding Liverpool has by all accounts really profited from their year in the spotlight – the city seeing a significant boost in publicity and a large increase in visitor numbers.

Apparently the regional character of our bid worked against us last time – judges felt that our ‘Be in Birmingham’ phrase also really meant ‘Be in Warwick’ and ‘Be in Stratford’. It was suggested that we should have just concentrated on selling Birmingham. Also, it was rumoured that the committee chairman was critical of the city’s built environment and our lack of iconic architecture. A lot has changed, of course, over the last 6 years (the competition was held in 2003) and we now, of course, have Selfridges and a re-developed Bull Ring.

Outline applications have to be in by 16th October and the winner will be revealed at the end of 2010.