Norwich City Of Culture Bid

What a shame Norwich didn’t win the City of Culture bid. Following the impact in Liverpool, who won the European Capital of Culture in 2008, clearly it would have given the city a great boost at a difficult time. The competition was tough, Birmingham, Sheffield and Londonderry are all great cities. I haven’t been to Londonderry, but I have visited Birmingham and Sheffield many many times and they are terrific places full of culture. That said – so is Norwich. We are smaller, perhaps a little more remote, and at times perhaps a little slow off the mark. On the other hand, we are independently minded, original, entrepreneurial, friendly and welcoming, imaginative, creative, successful, skilled, and knowledgeable. We have a great heritage of buildings, of places, of events and celebrations. We have some great musicians, artists, writers, photographers and actors. We also love coming together and have a history of producing great food and drink in all manner of different ways. Norwich has two amazing Cathedrals, two beautiful rivers, a historic market, a castle, a superb and technically advanced university, and one of the most respected Art Colleges outside of London. We also spent considerably less money on putting our bid together than the other cities did.

Although we didn’t win the honour, I think the process reminded a lot of people just what a special place Norwich is, it got a lot of the arts community in Norwich talking and working together, perhaps marketing Norwich properly for the first time, and it laid the foundations to make Norwich a city of culture not for one year but on an ongoing basis.