Harrogate Town Council has spent £10,000 drawing up a bid to enter the first UK Town of Culture contest. The bid was submitted this week — Ripon and Knaresborough are also taking part. 

There are categories for large, medium and small towns. Each shortlisted town will receive £60,000 to work up full bids. The overall winner will receive £3 million and two runners-up will each receive £250,000. Here, Harrogate Liberal Democrat town councillor and mayor Councillor Chris Aldred explains why it has entered.

Harrogate exists as the town we know and love today because of its culture. 

We have a long and cherished history of welcoming worldwide visitors here, initially to ‘take the waters’ for good health, which led to plays, musical recitals, sporting events and many other diverse happenings being held here for the benefit of our visitors, plus a growing number of residents choosing to live here. 

The town council’s theme in its bid to become the first UK Town of Culture in 2028 — Water, Wellbeing & Welcome — is built on this history.

But there's another side to Harrogate, sometimes unseen by our visitors, which we also want to address, if Harrogate is successful in winning the UK government competition. 

Besides our wonderful Royal Hall, theatre, conference centre, showground and marvellous public gardens and open spaces, Harrogate also contains three of the most socially deprived areas in North Yorkshire, based on official statistics.

So we very much see this competition as all embracing, celebrating the cultural offering of the entire town, showing the rest of the country we actually are a diverse community, whilst also putting the building blocks in place so that young people — our town’s future — can lead on some of the projects and events we would like to see happen, across the whole of the town, not just in our architecturally impressive and beautiful town centre.

When the town council learnt the rules of engagement for this competition, we realised that Harrogate would be the only North Yorkshire town eligible to submit an entry for the large town category, so we have engaged with as many groups and organisations as possible, within a relatively short time span, aiming to bring the town together so that we can all participate and make 2028 something special.

There are many significant anniversaries that will take place in Harrogate that year anyway — the 250th anniversary of The Stray Act, 150 years since the Bicycle Touring Club (now Cycling UK) was founded in Harrogate, 125 years since the opening of the Royal Hall — so the work we have done on our expression of interest, which was officially submitted last week, will not be wasted.

I feel this is a great example of what a town council exists for, to bring together its residents in something that will hopefully benefit the whole town and gives us an opportunity to collaboratively build for the future.

As this year's Mayor of Harrogate, I will have undertaken over 120 separate engagements by May 6, when my year comes to an end. During those events I have been privileged to meet representees of the many organisations that provide the glue to our town, often in voluntary capacities, making it what it is, and with ambitions for what it could be.

I truly believe Harrogate has a great story to tell and we are a town of fantastic, creative and talented communities who can come together to provide a memorable, thought-provoking showcase of cultural opportunities which will reverberate across the UK in 2028.

Whilst Water, Wellness and Welcome celebrates what Harrogate is today, we, together, have a great opportunity to broaden our collective cultural offering using this competition — and hopefully the money that goes with it — as a launch pad for our cultural future.