Swindon bidding to become the UK’s City of Culture 2029

by Luca, Swindon Youth Voice

Swindon Borough Council invited Swindon Youth Voice and other not-for-profit organisations to the launch of the bid at Create Studios, close to the Steam Museum. Along with two other members of Swindon youth voice, I attended the launch at 1pm on Monday 26^th January.

The conference explored Swindon’s cultural identity and its potential to become a City of Culture. Thereafter, a session was held two days later at the Workshed, hosted by the council but only with young people exclusively allowed as attendees, which put forward questions on what young people’s roles could be in this bid, and to seek answers relating to the aspirations of young people and what they wish Swindon could be if the bid is successful.

Swindon can only apply for the City of Culture bid, and the town would qualify for a larger grant of ten million pounds as opposed to the smaller three million pounds from the Town of Culture. It could be at a disadvantage in terms of infrastructure and budget in contrast to larger cities with more experience such as Bristol, or Bradford.

Considering the fact that Swindon cannot apply for the Town of Culture, I was wondering why Swindon is not a city, even if it can apply for the City of Culture. After some research, I have found that the limit on population for the Town of Culture is at 75,000 inhabitants, and Swindon exceeds this. Although the City of Culture has a lower bound of 75,000, the criteria for Swindon reaching city status vastly differs from the bid’s criteria and is not directly tied into factors such as the number of inhabitants, infrastructure, or existence of a cathedral (although this was historically common, it is now no longer necessary). Swindon can only become a city if it is formally granted city status by the monarch, during national civic honours competitions. 

Other updates include the establishment of a youth advisory board, now known as the Spark Council. This is a bi-monthly meeting online or in person to discuss the local voluntary sector and support with any decision making. The Green Party councillor Repi Begum came to the Baker’s Café to share her experiences and what we could be done to avert climate change, and followed up with a second meeting at Voluntary Action Swindon headquarters about us starting an Inclusion Working Group for young people.