City status in the United Kingdom: Encyclopedia II - City status in the United Kingdom - City applications

City status in the United Kingdom - City applications

City status grants have been used to mark special royal and other occasions. Swansea was granted city status in 1969 to mark the investiture of Charles, Duke of Cornwall, as Prince of Wales. At the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, Derby was granted the honour. The use of formal competitions for city status is a recent practice. The first competition was held in 1992, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen's reign. Sunderland was the winner. In 1994 two historic seats of Bishoprics—St David's and Armagh—were granted city status. They had been considered cities historically, but this status had lapsed. For the city applications in 2000, held to celebrate the millennium, the following towns and boroughs requested city status:

• England: Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Brighton and Hove, Chelmsford, Colchester, Croydon, Doncaster, Dover, Guildford, Ipswich, Luton, Maidstone, Medway, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Preston, Reading, Shrewsbury and Atcham, Southend-on-Sea, Southwark, Stockport, Swindon, Telford and Wrekin, Warrington, Wolverhampton.
• Wales: Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, Newport, Newtown, St Asaph, Wrexham.
• Scotland: Ayr, Inverness, Paisley, Stirling.
• Northern Ireland: Ballymena, Lisburn.

The three winners were Brighton and Hove, Wolverhampton, and Inverness.

For the 2002 applications, held to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the entrants included all of the above towns except Southwark, together with Greenwich and Wirral in England, Dumfries in Scotland and Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Craigavon and Newry in Northern Ireland. There was mild controversy in the rest of the UK over the fact that two of the three winners of the 2000 competition were English towns—especially in Wales—and so 2002 was run as four separate competitions. The winners in Great Britain were Preston in England, Newport in Wales, and Stirling in Scotland. In Northern Ireland it was decided to award city status to two entrants: Lisburn (predominantly unionist) and Newry (predominantly nationalist). Exeter was awarded Lord Mayoralty status in a separate application.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "City applications", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki