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Too many places have been “written out of the national story”, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said as she launched a search for the UK’s first “town of culture”.
The town of culture designation comes after the success of the cities of culture programme, which has put Derry, Hull, Coventry and, this year, Bradford in the limelight for a year, boosting the local economy, tourism, civic pride and access to the arts, according to its supporters.
The government said the first winning town would get £3.5m to help it develop a cultural programme in the summer of 2028.
The competition for the 2029 UK city of culture has also opened, with the winner being promised £10m, the first time the government has put an upfront figure on its contribution.
Nandy visited Bradford on Thursday to see a number of city of culture projects, including the Turner Prize exhibition of four shortlisted contemporary artists displaying their works in the wood-panelled Edwardian splendour of the Cartwright Hall gallery in Lister Park.
She told the Guardian that too often the debate around art and culture was framed as an excellence-v-access debate.
“Actually, the vision in Bradford is exactly the vision we’ve got, which is access to excellence,” she said. “Great culture is everywhere, but the opportunity to showcase it, to put it on display and to weave it into our national story is not.”
Nandy said she wanted every town and city in the UK to know that their contribution “is seen and valued, and has the opportunity to see themselves reflected in the story we tell ourselves about ourselves as a nation”.
Nandy represents Wigan, the starting ground for the Verve and Sir Ian McKellen but a place that, like so many others, she says has “for too long … been written off and written out of the national story, and we’re determined that’s going to change”.
“Why shouldn’t the next Oscar winner or Bafta winner come from Wigan or Barnsley or Bradford?”
The town of culture idea stems from the success of an award of the same name that has been running in Greater Manchester since 2010. Each year it highlights the creativity and diversity of one of its towns.
Officials are expecting towns with a population below 75,000 to apply for the new national competition, although they stress that a town with 76,000 would not be excluded.
Larger towns, such as Reading, with its population of more than 170,000, should be bidding for the city of culture.
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The city of culture designation is awarded once every four years and lasts a year, during which time the city puts on cultural events and hosts the Turner prize.
It was introduced by Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, when he was Labour’s culture secretary in 2009, and was modelled on the European capital of culture, which had a dramatic effect on the fortunes of Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008.
Events hosted by Bradford this year have included an opening spectacle headlined by the magician Stephen Frayne, formerly Dynamo, a David Hockney-inspired drawing project, a BBC Prom and The Railway Children performed on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
Nandy said she thought Bradford had done “better than any before, because they’ve had the opportunity to learn from those who went before. Not only have they been able to bring world-class artists here, they’ve been able to give a platform to the world-class artists who are already here.”
She added: “People are proud of where they come from, they’re proud of their town, they’re proud of their city, but too often that pride isn’t shared and heard at the highest levels.
“For me, this is less about giving people pride back in their area and more about giving the whole nation the chance to see how proud people are of the contribution that they make.”
