New UK Town of Culture competition to celebrate our national story

The UK Town of Culture competition will see multiple towns competing to win the title with the winning town delivering a cultural programme, which will help to boost pride in place by shining a spotlight on multiple towns and enabling them to tell their unique story. 

The competition will build on the success of the UK City of Culture programme, which has seen significant lasting impacts across winning cities of Derry/LondonDerry, Hull and Coventry. 

The current UK City of Culture, Bradford, is delivering significant benefits. Within the first six months of the programme:

• Over 11,000 school children have benefitted from Bradford 2025 education programmes
• Over 40,000 local people participated in cultural events in the programme
• Over 2,000 people from every ward in the district have volunteered, and 
• Over 4,000 people have benefitted from Bradford 2025 training programmes. 

The new competition will sit alongside the existing UK City of Culture initiative. The Culture Secretary has confirmed that the department will be running a UK City of Culture competition for 2029, which will launch shortly. 

Further details on both competitions will be shared in due course.