Whilst Liverpool was the eventual winner of the competition, Oxford was one of the six shortlisted and all three South Eastern cities benefited from the bidding process. All of them were determined to progress many of the projects and events which had been planned in their original bids.
In February 2004, in the wake of the competition, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced the Urban Cultural Programme comprising £15m of National Lottery funding to help support and develop programmes of cultural activity focussed on urban areas over the period 2004-06.
Working in partnership with Culture South East, the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Arts Council England, South East, we met with representatives from the three cities to discuss how the bids might be strengthened. It was agreed that including collaborative elements across two or all three of the bids could add value, recognising the leading role the cities play in the cultural offering of the region. We brokered the commissioning of a study to explore the collaborative possibilities and to identify projects where the cities could work together.
The study proposals were included by all three cities in their bids and contributed to a very successful outcome – awards totalling £2.1m will come to the South East - £750,000 each to Canterbury and Brighton & Hove and £600,000 to Oxford.
