Liverpool win City of Culture!!

Liverpool win City of Culture!!

Liverpool named Capital of Culture


Liverpool plans a year-long festival.

Liverpool has been named European Capital of Culture 2008 by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.

The city beat five other hopefuls - Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle-Gateshead and Oxford - to win the coveted prize.

The title is expected to attract more tourists, increase investment and create jobs as well as boost the profile of the winning city.

Ms Jowell said the competition had "brought out the very best" in all the cities which had entered.

The rivalry between those selected has been fierce, owing to the benefits previous holders of the title have received.

The UK's last City of Culture - Glasgow in 1990 - saw a massive increase in tourism as a result of winning the title.

City of Culture candidates
Birmingham
Bristol
Cardiff
Liverpool
Newcastle-Gateshead
Oxford

Six cities were chosen from a dozen hopefuls last October to vie for the accolade.

The shortlisted cities were automatically given the title of Centres of Culture, which could be used to help them secure European and lottery funding.

The European Union (EU) has designed the Capital of Culture programme to replace the City of Culture status which began with Athens in 1985.

The first Capital will be Cork in the Republic of Ireland in 2005, followed by Patras in Greece in 2006 and Luxembourg a year later.

The team promoting Liverpool's bid said it has prepared a detailed plan to deliver "the most spectacular celebration of culture" in the history of Europe.

'Spectacular celebration'

It promises a year-long festival featuring art, architecture, ballet, comedy, cinema, food, fashion, literature, music, opera, science and theatre.

Sir Bob Scott, chief executive of the Liverpool Culture Company spearheading the bid, raved about his city.

"This is an exceptional and stimulating city. It can be charming, humorous and witty, as well as irreverent, opinionated and challenging," he said.

This is an exceptional and stimulating city. It can be charming, humorous and witty, as well as irreverent, opinionated and challenging,

Sir Bob Scott
Chief executive of Liverpool's bid
Newcastle-Gateshead launched a joint bid from both sides of the River Tyne in recognition of the massive development work being carried out there.

They were a frontrunner with bookmakers highlighting the innovative Millennium Bridge, the multi-million pound Baltic Centre for contemporary art and the under-construction Sage Music Centre as potential selling points.

Brushing aside its image as the industrial heartland, Birmingham stressed its experience, expertise and ethnic diversity in its bid.

Organisers reminded the judging panel of events hosted by Britain's second city, including the G8 Summit, the world's largest trade fair, the World Indoor Athletics Championships and the Eurovision Song Contest in recent years.

Bid supporters said the city had been investing in culture and "culture-led regeneration" for decades.

Even Bollywood stars were enlisted to boost the city's rich ethnic mix.

'World class'

Bristol, ranked fifth-likely to win, was described as "tremendously appealing" by the city's bid director, Andrew Kelly.

It was a city that appealed to both tourists and locals, he said.

The Welsh city of Cardiff said its experience hosting events at the Millennium Stadium would make it the ideal capital of culture.

"We have world class companies like the Welsh National Opera and by 2008 the jewel in the crown will be the Wales Millennium Centre, which will do for the performing arts what the stadium has done for sport," said Lynne Williams, chief executive of Cardiff 2008.


Oxford campaigned under the slogan 'Oxford Inspires'
"We have put a huge effort into this bid and we all feel that it is the most European of bids."

The bid also said Cardiff was "a safe pair of hands in terms of diversity" being "the oldest multicultural community in the UK."

Under the slogan Oxford Inspires, the university town proposed a Festival of Walks through the Oxfordshire countryside, a Freshwater Festival and a Food and Countryside Festival in its bid.

It enlisted the support of renowned scientist Stephen Hawkins, author Nina Bawden and Colin Dexter, writer of Inspector Morse TV series, to say how the city inspired them.

The cities which failed to make the shortlist were Belfast, Bradford, Brighton and Hove, Canterbury and East Kent, Inverness and the Highlands and Norwich.


WHAT A RIP!!

Shocking. Thieving ba$tards.
Ah well, they can stop the rebuilding and let the place go to ruin again!!

bollocks!

i really that we would win

as long as the development continues....

The Council will be well gutted...thought we were home n dry...perhaps this is payback for the Love Parade fuck-up...still a guttner though

Typical !!!

Liverpool is a industrial wasteland !!

but we never get fook all up here anyway so it isnt that much of a shock

If they hadn't have won it, the Scouse scallies would only have nicked the certificate anyway

terrible shame but as sum1 pointed out they probs won cos there cultural stuff is comlete where as newcastle & gateshead isn't!!

Dirty fuckin scouse twats! Should all be nuked! :evil:

We well deserved it

Looks like Gateshead & Newcastle Councillors will be doing run of mill boring social needs projects over the next 5 years instead of fur coat & no knickers cultural projects. SHAME!

We obviously didn't deserve to win as Liverpool did win. As far as a fix goes NEW LABOUR is packed full of North East MPs so I dont think it would have been fixed as the selection committee members would never be used again.

As for winning a phone vote check out other famous phone vote winners:One True Voice,Will Young & HERE SAY!!!

Balls

YAY

Told ya we'd win Alex

Lancashire's 2nd city has done well

I didn't think this was being decided til august or summink!

What a fukka, scouse twats.

What a load of utter tosh, it should've been ours it was in the bag! They just dont wanna give it to us cos we're common geordies! Well bugger them all i'm going out to celebrate this weekend anyway.

So what didnt you like about the Liverpool bid?

surely they don't rate scousers higher than geordies on the "commoner" scale!!!

I would like to think not!! I class Liverpool as our North West cousins ,both industrial areas that were fucked by Thatcher. Both areas have had to shake off that 'industrial' tag and move on. This competition has helped do that for both areas. We may not be the European City of Culture but we have seen a lot of regeneration, we the people of the North East can see the improvements, better than any tourist who came because we had a title.

Lets be glad the award went to Liverpool a city that has parrels with Gateshead & Newcastle & not places like Bristol or Oxford.