This evening it was announced live on BBC’s The One Show that the winner of the UK City of Culture 2025 title is Bradford
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.
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- Work that will now take place includes
-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.
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.”
What happens next?
Although we have missed out on becoming UK City of Culture hosts in 2025, there’s still so much to look forward to.
- We intend on having our own ‘year of culture’ in 2023 and 2005 and will publicise what this looks like by July 2022
- £15 million has been secured to develop the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and world heritage site.
- Refurbishment of the butchers and General Markets.
- Further developments as part of the Wrexham Gateway project.
- Development of the Welsh football museum for set for delivery in 2025.
- Working with Wrexham AFC in developing the Racecourse
