Every place applying for official city status, ranked by order of plausibility
lol, Reading.
“Winning city status can provide a boost to local communities and open up new opportunities for people who live there,” reads a Department for Culture, Media & Sport press release quietly shoved out over Christmas, “as is the case with previous winners Preston and Perth where the local economies benefited from their improved national and global standing.”
I think, when it comes to the improved global standing of Preston and Perth, the phrase we’re looking for is “citation needed”. The press release does include quotes from the chair of the Preston Business Improvement District about how brilliant city status has been, but since a) the Preston Business Improvement District was one of the prime movers in the campaign to win city status for Preston, and b) you can generally find someone to say most things if you tell them they might get their name in the papers, I’m not sure we can really class this as “evidence”, exactly.
Anyway, even if the whole thing is a complete waste of time and money, which it probably is, that hasn’t stopped 38* different places applying for city status as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations this year. Some of them, weirdly, aren’t in the UK at all, because in what I can only assume is more global Britain nonsense, “British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are also included for the first time”. This means that someone in the government genuinely had the thought, “If we make Gibraltar a city, perhaps no one will notice the collapse in cross-Channel trade.”
Is Stanley the city of the future? No. Image: Eric Gaba/Wikimedia/creative commons.
So who are the contenders for the shiny new “city of” label? And how ridiculous are they, exactly? Below I’ve ranked them from “should probably be a city already” to “no really who are you kidding here”.
Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire
You may sneer, but it’s the central settlement in a sizeable urban area and has an up and coming Tory metro mayor. Strong candidate.
Bournemouth, Dorset
Half a million people live there or thereabouts: strange it’s not already a city in some ways.
Douglas, Isle of Man
An actual capital. Tiny (28,000, ish), but if the UK government is going to grant city status to places not actually in the UK, which apparently it is, then this must top the list.
Northampton, Northamptonshire
Pretty big (200k+), county town, why not really?
Medway, Kent
Rochester is the only place to ever actually lose city status due to administrative cock up (because when Medway was invented, Rochester, er, ceased to exist). The chance to correct this historic oversight probably looks pretty tempting.
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
Britain’s most successful new town, big, and growing fast. The city of the future! Okay, it’s a future no one seems to want! But in a world where city status was granted for sane reasons like “actual demographic or economic importance” it’d be a city already!!
Warrington, Cheshire
Was going to rank this lower, but it’s basically the exact same story as Milton Keynes so I realised this was just anti-northern bias on my part and shoved it up the list.
Wrexham, Clwyd
The lucky winners in 2012 included one apiece from England, Scotland and Wales (Chelmsford, Perth and St. Asaph), so this must be pretty plausible merely by virtue of being in Wales. Also, it’s not much smaller than nearby Chester.
St Andrews, Fife
By the same logic: somewhere from Scotland is probably going to get city status, why not the one at least some senior Tories were educated and/or played golf in? Is the fact that hardly anyone lives there really enough to counteract that?
Bangor, County Down
Biggest candidate in Northern Ireland, so pretty good shout. Only slight issue is that the (smaller) Bangor in Wales is already a city.
Stanley, Falkland Islands
Absolutely ridiculous idea, but tell me you can’t imagine the look on Nadine Dorries’ face as she announces it.
(A side note. Why on earth is this DCMS’ area of influence anyway? Wouldn’t this fit better in whatever they’re calling the local government/housing/levelling up sock drawer this week? That said, I approve of only letting Dorries near completely pointless bits of policy, so perhaps I should shut up.)
Dorchester, Dorset
Tiny and forgotten but sounds important (Dor-set, Dor-chester, geddit?), so would fit right in with such existing official cities as Durham and Ely.
Warwick, Warwickshire
See Dorchester.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire
Decent size, and government might smile on it for red wall reasons. Plausible.
Bolsover, Derbyshire
Less decent size – it’s about 10k, rather than 100k – but government might smile on it for red wall and/or trolling the Labour party reasons. Still plausible.
Livingston, West Lothian
One of Scotland’s more successful new towns, but an order of magnitude smaller than MK or Warrington. So plausible, but probably, no.
Colchester, Essex
One of the oldest settlements in these islands, which should make it a strong candidate, but Essex has already had two new cities in 10 years (the aforementioned Chelmsford and, last year, Southend). So seems unlikely.
Gibraltar, Gibraltar
On the one hand it’s ridiculous, on another it might trigger war with Spain, so you can see why this government would be tempted.
Dunfermline, Fife; Oban, Argyll and Bute; Greenock, Renfrewshire
We’re into the realm of places that are only on the list at all because somewhere from Scotland is going to make the list. But it’s probably not any of these is it, let’s be honest.
Coleraine, County Londonderry; Ballymena, County Antrim
Same, but with Northern Ireland. One of these might sneak over the line because the government decides it’s stupid to have two cities called Bangor.
Reading, Berkshire
Big, historic and important, so logically it should have city status already. But since it’s been rejected three times, it’s increasingly clear someone in Whitehall has a vendetta against it – which, to be fair, is very funny – so it ain’t happening.
Dudley, West Midlands
Personally I think it’d also be hilarious if the West Midlands – which is, let’s be honest, Greater Birmingham – was to get a fourth city. This would also mean a fairly sizeable city without a railway station (Dudley Port, bafflingly, is in Sandwell, just outside). But I don’t seriously expect anyone in government to share this view.
Blackburn, Lancashire
Big-ish, important-ish, but has made the critical error of continuing to vote Labour so let’s be honest this is not happening either is it.
Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway
Wikipedia: “No positive information has been obtained of the era and circumstances in which the town of Dumfries was founded.” Says it all.
Boston, Lincolnshire
No.
Crewe, Cheshire
No, but with more trains.
Guildford, Surrey
Lol, no.
Goole, East Yorkshire
Where? No.
Crawley, West Sussex
Are you actually kidding me? It’s a few suburban streets next to an airport. Absolutely no chance.
Elgin, Moray
Sort out the marbles then we’ll talk. Til then: no.
Newport and Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight
Originally ranked this higher as I thought it was the Welsh one but turns out that’s already a city, so: nooooo.
Peel, Isle of Man
Obviously not, but it would be hilarious if Peel (pop. 5,000) got it in place of Douglas (pop. 28,000).
Alcester, Warwickshire
Not the county town, next door to Shakespeare’s birthplace, who are you kidding? By this point in the list I don’t think even the people applying reckon they’re in with a shot, they’re just trying to get their names in the papers.
South Ayrshire, Ayrshire and Arran
This one isn’t even a settlement! It’s an entire council district! Why is it here? How could it possibly class as a city? The only one stupider is:
George Town, Cayman Islands
Okay, in some ways this isn’t ridiculous: it’s 40,000 people, it’s the largest settlement in any British overseas territory, it’s a hub of the global financial system. But come on. In her Platinum Jubilee year, surely even this government isn’t going to ask the queen to grant official city status to a place that exists almost entirely as a tax haven. Surely that’s too on the nose.
Oh who am I kidding, it’s way more likely than Reading.
Eagle-eyed city-watchers may have frowned at my claim that there were 38 places on this list, thanks to their dim recollection that there were actually 39 applicants. Readers may similarly have been baffled by the exclusion from this list of the Cornish resort village of Marazion (population: 1,400), which got rather a lot of headlines thanks to its attempt to become Britain’s smallest city (the current holder of that title is St David’s, Pembrokeshire, a veritable metropolis with a population of 1,600).
Sadly, in early January, DCMS unexpectedly changed the rules, so that places needed permission from their “primary authority” (no idea) to apply. Nobody in Marazion had thought to ask its primary authority, Cornwall, or indeed had ever heard the phrase “primary authority” before, so the bid was thrown out. Bummer.
Delightfully, though, I’ve since received correspondence from one of the councillors involved which a) confirmed that the whole thing was a PR stunt intended to attract both headlines and visitors to the village, and b) it worked so ya boo sucks. Can’t say fairer than that.
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