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NORWICH TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER CITY OF CULTURE BLOW

27 Jul 2010

Norwich will bounce back from the disappointment of missing out on the UK City of Culture prize

Civic leaders in Norwich last night vowed to bounce back from the disappointment of missing out on the UK City of Culture prize with a pledge to host their own celebrations in 2013. 
 
Norwich lost out in the race to become the first City of Culture in three years time after culture minister Ed Vaizey announced the prize was going instead to Derry/Londonderry. 
 
A successful bid would have brought with it an exciting raft of cultural events and activities across the city and also the promise of a £215m to the local economy because of the expected boost in visitors to the area. 
 
Norwich had made it to the final of the contest, along with Derry/Londonderry, Birmingham, and Sheffield, after seeing off competition from 29 other places, while a host of celebrities including Stephen Fry, Delia Smith, Rick Wakeman, and Ian McEwan were among those offering high profile support. 
 
Hopes had been high that Norwich would get the vote after impressing judges and emerging as the bookies favourite, but it was not to be as judges were instead swayed by the "peace and reconciliation" that underpinned the Derry bid. 
 
Steve Morphew, leader of Norwich City Council, which had spearheaded the bid, said despite missing out there was still much to be gained from the bid, which had also helped the city to increase its national profile, showcased its outstanding artistic talent and brought arts and cultural groups even closer together. 
 
He said the positive experience of the competition would also be used to help shape how the city develops cultural activities over the next 10 years and the city planed to celebrate anyway. 
 
"Norwich is already a fine city of culture and people should feel immensely proud of how it is perceived," Mr Morphew said. "We always said this was a 'win-win' for Norwich and we are already seeing more visitors coming to the city, something we need to capitalise on in the current financial climate. 
 
"I would like to thank everyone in the city who supported us and got behind our bid and urge them to keep promoting Norwich as a wonderful cultural city."  
 
To mark the start of the year of the UK City of Culture there will be a Norfolk and Norwich Festival event to release 2,013 paper lanterns into the skies each containing the hopes and wishes of a Norwich resident. 
 
The council will also work with the Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Theatre Royal on a 'Festival of Britten' with to celebrate Benjamin Britten's centenary in 2013. 
 
Hundreds of young people will take part in a volunteer-led mass literacy project based on creative writing, led by the Writers' Centre Norwich, and there are also plans for a 1,000-strong choir to perform at Norwich City's Carrow Road stadium in a mass community event. 
 
A new consortium that will bring together will bring together community organisations such as The Garage, Future Projects and Norwich Community Arts (NORCA) to develop the arts by bidding for funding will also be formed and the bid team will also be looking to work with the other three cities and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to see how we bring even more cultural resources into Norwich. 
 
Jonathan Holloway, director of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, said the city would take forward the ideas of vision of the bid to become the city of culture in "all but name". 
 
"Of course, it's terribly sad that we didn't win the title, but since it wouldn't have come with funding attached, we can celebrate what the bidding process has already delivered - a newly unlocked appetite for year-round culture, proof of the value of cultural activity to the local economy and a new collective energy, passion and confidence in our unique identity and potential that has permeated right across the city.  
 
"Our job now is to mobilise the thousands of cultural institutions, businesses and people from across the world who believe that Norwich is already a city of culture and do it anyway!" 
 
Peter Wilson, chief executive of Norwich Theatre Royal, said: "Norwich's story doesn't go away just because a committee has decided to give the award elsewhere. Norwich's story is a great one and we now need to find a way of telling it without the accolade of City of Culture.  
 
"The arts institutions who have been working on the bid will come together and we will decide how we tell Norwich's story," Mr Wilson said. "It has brought to the fore the amount of collaboration that is happening and highlighted the amount of cultural activity there already is in Norwich and indeed in Norfolk. I think it is a very good platform on which to build for some sort of celebration." 
 
Norwich's two MPs also agreed the city would quickly bounce back from last night's disappointment. 
 
Norwich North MP Chloe Smith, said "It's a great disppointment and a crying shame. It would have been a wonderful thing to have, but I wish Derry well with it. 
 
"I think now is the time to make sure we congratulate everyone who has put so many hours of hard work in to this." 
 
Norwich South MP Simon Wright said: "I don't that people should look back with disappointment at the case we put. It was a very strong bid. 
 
"There's a lot of positives that can be drawn from this process in terms of the networks that have been developed and the events and activities that have been drawn up. 
 
"It's been a fantastic achievement to get this far, it's disappointing, but it has been a positive experience for the city." 
 
Courtesy of EDP

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