Wells Bid for UK City of Culture

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Wells’s bid for UK City of Culture.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I am honoured to have secured a debate today—the penultimate day of this Parliament—to raise Wells’s bid to become UK city of culture in 2021. As a proud constituency MP, I have supported the bid since its genesis, which was not long ago. I will continue to support it because it has enormous potential to change the stars of both Wells and the wider Somerset area. Before I get going, it is important to place on the record that, in the absence of a large civic construct to put together this bid, it has fallen to volunteers in and around Wells to do so. One of those volunteers, Andy Webb, deserves particular note. The amount he has achieved in such a short time is phenomenal.

Before I talk specifically about Wells’s bid, I want to say a few words in my capacity as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the UK events industry, not least because I see that Nick de Bois hopes to return to Parliament and may well be restored to the chairmanship of the APPG when he gets here. It has been an absolute pleasure to chair that APPG for the past two years. I have learned an enormous amount about the ingenuity of the UK events industry and its role in driving our visitor economy and showcasing British business through the calibre and expertise of the events that we put on around the world. I have also seen the value of local, regional and national events, including the city of culture, which is a series of events over the course of a year or so. In Londonderry, city of culture status was worth £100 million to the local economy, and in Hull it has already been worth £60 million. Hon. Members can therefore perhaps see why Wells and the wider Somerset area are so keen on securing city of culture status. It would be transformative.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate about an issue that is tremendously important for his constituency and surrounding constituencies. He mentioned that, unlike larger civic constructs—that is the phrase he used—the bid is being put together by a small, dedicated band of volunteers. I am sure that he has therefore already spoken to Visit Somerset, which used to be called Somerset Tourism. I hope it has engaged strongly in creating Wells’s bid, if only because the knock-on effect for the local accommodation industry close to my home in Weston-super-Mare may be profound. I hope Visit Somerset is providing the support my hon. Friend hopes for.

[James Heappey]

I very much agree. This is a huge opportunity, not just for Wells but for Western-super-Mare. Visit Somerset has been involved, along with several other local bodies, in supporting the volunteers in putting together the bid. However, we need to discuss the differences in Wells’s bid so that the Minister might satisfy himself that the bid process lends itself as keenly to rural areas as to urban areas. Wells’s bid is not about post-industrial regeneration, which was the centrepiece of the bids by Londonderry and Hull. There is a very different opportunity down in Somerset, which I will talk about later.

Our bid draws on a rich cultural heritage that is way out of proportion with the size of our city. We are England’s smallest city, but our cathedral has a centuries-long tradition in music, as has the now ruined Glastonbury abbey, which still hosts wonderful musical events during the year. We have the Glastonbury festival just down the road. There is Arthurian legend all over, with Avalon and Glastonbury itself, which will be a wonderful theme to draw on throughout the city of culture year. There are now internationally significant art galleries in Bruton. There is an opera festival in Wedmore, there are comedy festivals in Wells, and there are literature, food and film festivals. We have Cedars Hall, a brand new world-class concert hall. We are the location for many movies and TV programmes, and so much more. That all goes alongside a rural, agricultural life and an incredible natural history, but we are also embracing our emerging digital arts industry as we tap into the success of those sectors in Bristol and Bath.

The cultural offer is perhaps more developed and diverse in Wells, the smallest of the bid cities, than in other large cities, but let us be clear: we are much less well funded. The bid document quite understandably requires certain commitments about a bid’s underpinning. Does the Minister believe that that is fair, given that we are trying to build a country that works for everyone? We must recognise that that includes developing the economies of rural areas as well as urban areas. I wonder whether, in the few days he has left—I accept that his civil servants are almost locked down in purdah—he will satisfy himself that, when smaller local authority areas bid for such things, the process perhaps needs to be weighted to recognise that they are unable to underwrite bids in the same way as larger metropolitan areas. Are there other ways of doing it?

The great advantage of volunteers coming together as they have in Wells is that there is private sector engagement, which is encouraging. The Heritage Lottery Fund has been forthcoming in explaining what involvement it may have. If we are aiming to create a country that works for everyone, I hope the Minister will look carefully at the process to ensure that all regions can compete equitably, and that the bid process does not disadvantage rural areas and those where local authorities are unable to resource bids more fully.