Guidance

UK City of Culture 2029: Full application guidance

Published 10 April 2026

Introduction

This guidance has been produced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to assist the longlisted places successful in the Expression of Interest (EOI) stage of the UK City of Culture 2029 competition to prepare and submit their full applications (hereafter ‘bids’). Longlisted places preparing their bids are advised to read this guidance in full.

Overview 

UK City of Culture is a UK-wide programme, developed in collaboration with the devolved governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and has become a model for cultural place-making. The programme celebrates and supports communities in places up and down the UK to use culture as a catalyst for transforming places and the lives of people through driving growth and good jobs, creating richer lives with choices and opportunities for all, and building a more socially cohesive country where communities feel proud of their place and empowered to change it. Being named UK City of Culture is a transformational moment in a place’s growth and the competition is an opportunity for places and communities to raise their ambitions and put culture and creativity at the heart of their plans for transformation and aspirations for the future. 

First launched in 2009 and now in its fifth iteration, the competition has supported Derry/Londonderry, Hull, Coventry and Bradford to deliver a year of rich cultural activity rooted in their unique identities and drawing on local strengths and stories. These previous UK Cities of Culture demonstrate how the programme can drive positive economic and social outcomes, develop lasting local, national and international partnerships, and bring people together. It can also strengthen communities, build a sense of place and inspire local pride, celebrating and boosting local and grassroots arts and culture, and attract new investment and tourism. 

Bidding for the title alone can have hugely positive impacts. The process of preparing a bid has supported places to bring partners together, develop strategic cultural leadership, articulate a vision for their place and consider the role of culture in their plans and aspirations. 

Recognising that the winner for 2029 will have a shortened delivery timeframe in comparison to recent title winners, these full application requirements have been designed to give places their best chance to develop a robust, detailed and deliverable plan for an ambitious year-long cultural programme that will lead to real impact and lasting momentum. 

Attached to this, DCMS has guaranteed for the first time to provide the winning place with £10 million funding toward delivering their year. This certainty in addition to the bid development grant of £60,000 will support planning. There will also be an information event with the expert advisory panel to help further understand, or clarify, what the panel itself will be looking for in the bids (more information on this below). This should support the bid writing process.

The level of detail and data that DCMS requires is proportionate to this timescale and support.

UK City of Culture 2029 aims and criteria

The aims and criteria outline the strategic objectives of the programme and set out what the successful winner of UK City of Culture 2029 will need to do. They are used by the expert advisory panel to assess bids at all stages of the competition. The criteria have been updated for this competition to focus even more on involving local people in shaping the bid and making sure they really benefit from the opportunities and impacts delivered by the programme. To be successful, bids must demonstrate how they meet the criteria and show potential to make a significant contribution to the aims of the UK City of Culture programme.

UK City of Culture 2029 competition aims and criteria

Aim 1

1. Share and celebrate a uniquely local story and vision which uses culture and creativity to transform a place

Criteria

• 1. Vision: Articulate a strong and unique vision for your place and programme, informed by communities and underpinned by a compelling local story which uses the catalytic effect of culture and heritage to bring people together, building a sense of place and inspiring local pride.
• 2. Leadership: Demonstrate a strong, collaborative leadership approach with clear commitment and involvement from local authorities, community organisations, and the cultural sector, ensuring a credible long-term cultural legacy.
• 3. Local need: Set out a programme and legacy that is shaped by communities and uses culture to respond to and address specific local priorities and targets those that are most in need.
• 4. Transformation: Present a strategic understanding of what ‘transformation’ means for your place and how it can deliver a measurable and sustaining step change for people and place, including the articulation of clear social, wellbeing and economic impacts.

Aim 2

2. Create transformative opportunities and richer lives for people and communities

Criteria

• 5. Opportunity: Create increased opportunities for everyone, especially young people, to access and participate in culture.
• 6. Empower: Demonstrate commitment to actively including local communities, grassroots artists and creatives, and regional and local leaders in decision-making. Also demonstrate commitment to supporting them to directly shape the bid, programme and legacy, devolving decision-making power to communities where possible.
• 7. Cohesion: Promote and increase community cohesion, engaging and inspiring local communities to volunteer and bring people together by creating spaces and opportunities for social mixing.
• 8. Pride: Build a sense of belonging and inspire local and national pride.

Aim 3

3. Create a sustainable economic impact by delivering good jobs and boosting growth in your place or wider region

Criteria

• 9. Context: Show a clear understanding of how your proposal fits with and strengthens wider regional or national growth plans.
• 10. Growth: Increase investment in culture and creativity, leading to higher productivity and output, to enhance the profile of the area as a cultural destination, leading to boosted tourism and new investment to drive inclusive growth.
• 11. Jobs: Increase local employment opportunities in the cultural and creative industries - before, during and beyond your programme year.
• 12. Skills: Increase inclusive opportunities for the development of specialist and life skills and for routes into creative and cultural careers, including for but not limited to young people.

Aim 4

4. Champion quality and innovation

Criteria

• 13. Quality: Deliver a high quality cultural programme that builds and expands on local strengths and assets, and draws on the best of the UK’s art, heritage and creative industries to contribute to the UK’s reputation as a world-leader in the cultural and creative industries.
• 14. Innovation: Demonstrate cultural and artistic excellence, creativity and innovation, including through using technology to open up access to culture.
• 15. Environmental responsibility: Embed environmentally sustainable practices into the programme and its legacy, demonstrating contribution to the UK’s Net Zero and nature protection objectives, and promote and inspire environmental responsibility.

Aim 5

5. Reach out locally and across the UK to work with a range of diverse partners

Criteria

• 16. Shared story: Strengthen and celebrate connections with places across the four nations of the UK (and also internationally, if important to your place and its story), drawing on culture and heritage to collaboratively tell our shared story through an outward-looking and highly inclusive programme.
• 17. Partnerships: Collaborate with a broad range of local, regional and national partners (and also international, if important to your place and its story), actively pursuing new opportunities and making meaningful and lasting connections that contribute to your place’s long term vision.

Aim 6

6. Maximise the legacy of the UK City of Culture programme

Criteria

• 18. Evaluate: Present a robust and achievable evaluation plan and methodology to monitor and evaluate the impact and expected step change of the programme, drawing on previous winning places.
• 19. Embed: Demonstrate a clear understanding of how the programme aligns with or embeds into existing local cultural strategies beyond 2029, or how the programme can be used as a catalyst to develop a cultural strategy which aligns with existing local strategies.
• 20. Sustain: Present an ambitious and robust plan that demonstrates how the strategy underpinning the programme will deliver a strong ecosystem of cultural and creative organisations rooted in and actively shaped by the community, and strengthen local leadership, partnerships and capability.

Which places can bid?

This phase of the competition is only open to the following nine longlisted places which have been invited to submit full bids following a successful EOI:

• Blackpool
• Inverness-Highland
• Ipswich
• Middlesbrough
• Milton Keynes
• Portsmouth
• Sheffield
• Swindon
• Wrexham

Funding

In recognition of the impact of the UK City of Culture programme DCMS has confirmed guaranteed £10 million prize money for the winning place to support them with the delivery of their programme, as well as £125,000 resource grants for each of the three ‘runners up’ to allow them to take forward some elements of their bid. 

DCMS recognises that commitment of funding up front can provide places with the confidence and security to engage with the competition and launch ambitious bids. Fundraising ambitions should exceed the DCMS prize money and we would expect bidders to maximise this opportunity to leverage significant funding from other sources, such as sponsorship and philanthropy.

DCMS has awarded bid development grants of £60,000 to each of the longlisted places to support bid development. These grants are intended to provide a flexible source of funding that can be deployed by bidding places as required to strengthen bids and help to develop a scalable plan. For example grants can be spent on:

• research & development (R&D)
• consultation
• human resources
• data gathering
• commercial expertise for proposed capital plans

Expert advisory panel

The UK City of Culture 2029 expert advisory panel plays a key role in the competition. They bring a broad and diverse range of sector experience and expertise, provide critical and objective assessment of bids and make recommendations to DCMS ministers at all stages of the competition. Later in the competition the panel will undertake visits to shortlisted places. They will also act as a critical friend to the winning place once the winner has been announced (more information on this is below).

DCMS and all members of the panel are committed to ensuring absolute fairness in the competition process. Any conflicts of interest as they arise will be declared and all interactions between the panel and bidding places will be strictly even-handed and involve the DCMS panel secretariat. Members of the panel will not be able to support or advise any particular bid in any capacity, including on social media.

Competition stages and milestones

The selection process is intended to ensure that the best possible bidder from across the UK is selected to become UK City of Culture 2029. The competition has been designed to lead to the designation of a place that has an ambitious and unique vision for what it will achieve in 2029 and beyond; but also one that has credible and realistic plans to be able to turn its vision into reality.

Stage 1: Expression of Interest

• DCMS received EOIs from places across the UK. The expert advisory panel assessed the EOIs against the competition criteria and recommended a longlist of places to DCMS ministers. Longlisted places have been invited to submit full bids.

Stage 2: Longlist

This is the current stage

• The longlisted places each develop and submit a full bid in line with this guidance, supported by a DCMS grant of £60,000. Places have four months to complete their bid.

• The longlisted places will also be invited to an Information Event with the expert advisory panel (more information on this below).

• The expert advisory panel will assess all full bids against the competition criteria and recommend a shortlist of up to four places which will be presented to DCMS ministers, who will make the final decision. We will provide feedback to all the longlisted places.

Stage 3: Shortlist

• The panel will visit the shortlisted places. Following these visits, the shortlisted places will also be invited to give a final presentation to the panel and engage in detailed discussions about their vision and plans. Further guidance on this stage will be shared in due course. 

• The panel will submit their recommendation for the winner of UK City of Culture 2029 to DCMS ministers, who will make the final decision. We will provide feedback to all the shortlisted places.

• DCMS aims to announce the UK City of Culture 2029 winner in late 2026 or early 2027.

Competition milestones and indicative dates

Competition stage: Longlist

• Announced: 18 March 2026
  
• Full application guidance published: 10 April 2026
  
• Information event: 2 June 2026
  
• Deadline for full bids: Monday 10 August 2026, 5:00pm
  

Competition stage: Shortlist

• Announced: Autumn 2026
  
• Visits and Final presentations: Autumn 2026
  

Competition stage: Winner informed and announced

• December 2026 or early January 2027
  

Competition stage: Expert advisory panel mid-term review

• January 2028: panel visit to winning place to be updated on progress of planning/delivery, and act as a critical friend
  

Competition stage: UK City of Culture 2029 winner’s delivery year

• January to December 2029
  

‘UK City of Culture 2029’ title, trade mark and branding

The competition winner will be designated as ‘UK City of Culture 2029’. We have issued branding guidance to all longlisted bidders to outline how bidding, winning and legacy places are able to use the title and trade mark in the years running up to and after 2029.

Media and publicity

We expect there to be significant publicity associated with the selection process, with coverage at a local and national level. We will issue press releases on the results of the shortlisting and final selection processes. The DCMS communications team will be in touch with communications teams in bidding locations as needed to update on plans and embargos. 

Data sharing and transparency

The UK City of Culture programme and its evaluation is crucial to our developing understanding of the social and economic impacts of cultural investment. Every four years we receive an incredible volume of information and data. Once the 2029 title has been awarded, we plan to deposit all bids (EOIs and full applications) in the National Archives, the official public archive of the UK government, to allow researchers and the public free access to this wealth of detail. We understand that some data may be commercially sensitive, so we will work with all bidders to provide redacted versions as necessary.

Data Protection

DCMS is committed to using any personal information we collect on a lawful, fair and transparent basis, respecting your legal rights as an individual in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and other applicable laws that regulate the use and privacy of personal data (Data Protection Law).

As part of us meeting this requirement, we have published our General Privacy Notice for you to refer to. For further information about our obligations and your rights under Data Protection Law, as well as how to report a concern if you believe that your personal data is being collected or used illegally, please also see the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By bidders

We recognise that some bidders may choose to use AI technologies to support the drafting of a bid that expresses their own, original ideas. We recommend those choosing to use AI tools to draft their bids do so cautiously and that bidding teams make themselves aware of the limitations of AI generated data. It is important to stress that bidders are accountable for what they submit to DCMS. We want the local character and voice of places to shine through in bids, and AI tools can generate bids with similar language and text, which can distract from a bid’s unique proposition. We advise bidders to consider whether a bid drafted with AI support offers the best and clearest representation of their programme, and to ensure that any application submitted to DCMS represents a true, original, and deliverable proposition. If you have used AI in your bid writing, please indicate this in your bid.  

By DCMS

DCMS may use secure and closed AI systems to support the generation of bid summaries for information-sharing purposes in line with our General Privacy notice. AI will not be used in the assessment of bids or for decision making. 

Contact 

For further information please contact ukcityofculture2029-competition@dcms.gov.uk.

Key expectations for bidders

Culture defined broadly

A key finding of previous competition winners is that culture, with creativity at its core, means different things to different places and communities. We want stories that are place-based and allow the unique character of places to shine through in bids. We expect bidders to showcase the strengths of the cultural offer in the area, yet acknowledge its weaknesses, and its potential to improve. It will be up to bidders to make the case for which activities are included in their proposed cultural programme and articulate the step change they aim to achieve. We expect programmes to be able to appeal to a wide range of audiences and to increase participation in cultural activities, especially amongst young people and those who currently engage with culture less, as well as contributing to economic growth, regeneration, community cohesion and local pride in place.

Bidders are encouraged to think about what culture means for them and to include activities encompassing a broad definition of culture and its creative industries. This includes but is not limited to: visual arts, literature; music; science and technology; living heritage; theatre; dance; combined arts; architecture; crafts; design; heritage and the historic and natural environment; museums and galleries; libraries and archives; film, broadcasting and media; video games; animation, visual and special effects; photography, and publishing.

This list is purely indicative as within each category or genre, sub-sectors thrive. Music is as wide and diverse as the cultural diversity of the four nations as is dance. And where do Living Heritage activities, such as cooking and gardening, rank in the identities and creative heritage of places across the UK? 

While bidders are encouraged to seek excellence at both national and local level, it is important that bidders consider culture in its broadest sense, in terms of what it means to all their communities.

Collaboration

We expect bid teams to work truly collaboratively on their bids and to deliver their programme, including in the following ways.

Bid partnerships should include the relevant local authorities or the strategic authority in a dedicated role and the bid must evidence their commitment of support and ongoing engagement. The wider bid partnership should demonstrate commitment to work collaboratively and include a wide range of community and cross-sector partners such as: local, regional and national businesses, industry and civic leaders, higher education institutions, cultural bodies, local library services, voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations and be aligned to other regional strategic bodies. It should also demonstrate commitment to actively including local communities in decision-making and supporting them to directly shape what happens in their area. This commitment to community collaboration should be demonstrated at all stages of the competition. 

We expect the winner to work with key partners to maximise opportunities and ensure delivery of high impact moments throughout their programme year. At this stage of the competition, we expect the bidding teams to have taken a strategic look at the cultural events calendar and for bids to showcase potential programming involving national partners and which have UK-wide reach, which can of course have a local focus involving their communities.

Clear Governance and Accountability for the programme

Bidders are required to specify organisations to be the ‘Accountable Body’ and ‘Delivery Body’ for their programme (these may be the same organisation but do not need to be) and set out a plan for this in your bid, with reference to the following definitions:

Accountable Body

A place’s chosen party, who are the recognised Accountable Body in relation to a planned UK City of Culture programme e.g. the relevant local or regional public authority. If successful, the Accountable Body will have overall responsibility and ownership for the programme. The responsibilities of the Accountable Body may include, but are not limited to:

• ensuring the safe and successful delivery of a UK City of Culture programme
  

• managing the financial and legal requirements associated with the delivery of a UK City of Culture programme
  

• taking responsibility for the organisation of a UK City of Culture programme, including leading on the necessary coordination between relevant partners
  

• taking responsibility for any grant funding associated with a UK City of Culture programme, for which the Accountable Body is the recipient organisation
  

• monitoring delivery of a UK City of Culture programme and undertaking relevant reporting as may be required by DCMS
  

Delivery Body

A place’s chosen party who will be responsible for the planning, procuring, commissioning and delivery of a planned UK City of Culture programme.

Alignment with other government missions and priorities

The UK City of Culture competition is part of the UK government’s ambitious Plan for Change and champions the missions to break down barriers to opportunity and kickstart economic growth in places across the UK. Arts and culture are a vital part of the UK’s first-class creative industries, one of the country’s key growth-driving sectors in the UK government’s Industrial Strategy. The Creative Industries Sector Plan provides a framework to build on the sector’s existing strengths and capitalise on new opportunities. 

The competition complements other UK government initiatives to support culture to thrive, such as the £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere investment, which will support local cultural venues across the country, restoring pride in place and national renewal and ensuring that everyone, everywhere has the opportunity to experience great culture and access to high quality institutions in the places they call home. 

Local government is foundational to the sharing of cultural opportunity across the UK, and to the successful delivery of UK City of Culture. Local authorities should work with local people to ensure that their bid and creative vision is reflective of their communities. In this way, the UK City of Culture competition embodies the principles set out in the English Devolution White Paper, the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster to England’s regions this century.  Through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment bill, subject to royal assent, Mayors will also gain new powers to champion arts, heritage and the creative industries, celebrating what makes each place distinctive, as culture becomes an official area of competence for Strategic Authorities for the first time.

It further complements other UK government place-based initiatives, notably the Pride in Place Strategy which sets out a plan to create safer, healthier neighbourhoods where communities can thrive. The Pride in Place Programme represents one of the largest investments in deprived neighbourhoods for a generation - up to £5 billion over 10 years to support up to 250 places. It also complements the UK government’s work on High Streets, including the recently announced  £301 million commitment to High Streets Innovation Partnerships which will support local communities to reimagine and revive struggling high streets and make them fit for the future.  

Bidding places from Wales and Scotland may wish to consider alignment with specific initiatives in those nations, for example the aims and ambitions of Culture Collective and Creative Communities in Scotland and Priorities for Culture, Cymraeg 2050 – A million Welsh speakers and the Well-being of Future Generations Act in Wales.

We encourage bidders to think about how their bid aligns with, builds on or prepares for other funds and initiatives as well as how it is integrated in wider regional and national growth plans. Bids should actively complement, rather than duplicate or compete with funding already delivering or set to deliver in their areas. Areas should not consider the UK City of Culture competition as an opportunity to plug any gap in funding not realised by other government funds. Nor should places that did or do not receive support through other funds feel that they are at a disadvantage in applying to the UK City of Culture competition. We want to support all bidders to realise culture’s contribution to transformational step change.

Environmental considerations

One of the UK government’s missions is to make Britain a clean energy superpower and accelerate to net zero by 2050. Tackling climate change is the one of the most urgent shared endeavours of our lifetimes, demanding bold action from us all. Our towns and cities are on the front line of climate change and culture is a powerful tool in tackling environmental challenges. Bids should embed environmentally sustainable practices into their plans, demonstrating contribution to the UK’s net zero and nature protection objectives, and promote and inspire environmental responsibility.

In practice this means programming should be based on low or zero carbon best practice, adopt and support innovative clean tech where possible and support the growing skills and supply chains in support of net zero where possible. To support green growth, bids should also consider how the programme can work with the natural environment to achieve its objectives, and - at a minimum - consider the programme’s impact on our country’s natural assets and nature. Bidders may find the resources produced by Julie’s Bicycle helpful, as they showcase places and organisations across the world becoming more sustainable with culture as their driver.

Learning from previous UK Cities of Culture

We want to see bids that propose unique programmes rooted to place and local communities, but that also build upon the growing body of evidence on previous UK Cities of Culture. While accepting that what is right for one place may not be relevant for another, we expect bidders to set out how they have built their own learned experience and that of other places into their proposals.

Previous UK Cities of Culture have published evaluation reports for their programmes: 

• Derry/Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013 evaluation
• Hull UK City of Culture 2017 evaluation
• Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 evaluation

Bidding places may also wish to refer to the following evidence reviews which explore the impacts of winning and bidding in the competition:

• Evidence review: UK City of Culture programme
• UK Cities of Culture: Stakeholder interviews with runner-up applicants

Support during the bidding process

Information event - 2 June 2026

DCMS will host an information event for all longlisted places on 2 June 2026 in Liverpool. This is a key event for bidding teams to understand the process and maximise the benefits of bidding for UK City of Culture. Details will follow and we would highly encourage all longlisted places to attend this in-person event.

Wider support and advice

The organisations and individuals supporting the UK City of Culture programme are willing to support the bidding process, but they will need to operate in an even-handed way and will not be able to make an exclusive commitment to any one place. You can expect to receive consistent, strategic advice from these organisations. Any conflicts of interest must be declared and for clarity, members of the expert advisory panel will not be able to support or advise any one bid in any capacity, including on social media.

How to prepare and submit your Full application (‘bid’)

Deadline and submission

The deadline for submitting full and final bids is Monday 10 August 2026 at 5:00pm.

All parts of your bid should be emailed together to ukcityofculture2029-competition@dcms.gov.uk.

What to include in your bid

There are three elements that make up your full bid and bidders will need to complete all three.

1. Main bid document

In your main bid you will be required to respond to the questions listed below in ‘Main bid questions’.

These build on and expand what was asked for at the EOI stage. Whilst we understand that the EOI represents an initial plan which will develop during the preparation of your bid, we expect to see a clear narrative thread running from your EOI to your full bid. If there are any major deviations, please give the reason for this.

It is expected that bids will set out a clear vision for your place and detailed and convincing plans for how you will deliver this, including a programme plan and narrative, partnerships and budget. We will require information about your local context, priority needs and challenges and how you will use UK City of Culture to address them. Bidders will be expected to commission or undertake research and consultation, and present data relating to social, cultural and economic impacts as well as credible and detailed delivery, fundraising and governance plans, particularly for any planned capital projects. 

The proposed programme should be scalable so that elements can be taken forward and impacts realised to a certain extent regardless of success in this competition.

2. Economic and social outputs datasheet

• UK City of Culture 2029: Economic and social outputs datasheet

• UK City of Culture 2029: Economic and social outputs datasheet information guide

In addition to this, bidders will be required to complete the ‘Economic and social outputs datasheet’ to support the information in your full bid. This datasheet is a key part of your application where you will need to set out and evidence your level of need and proposed impacts against your current baseline.

In addition to the data you will provide in the Economic and social outputs datasheet, the expert advisory panel will also receive additional statistics to describe the local context. This data will summarise the following: demographics (Census 2021 and Scotland’s Census 2022), GVA and employment (DCMS and ONS Economic Estimates), Wellbeing (Annual Population Survey), cultural engagement and community cohesion (Participation Survey, Community Life Survey, Scottish Household Survey, National Survey for Wales), and Indices of Multiple Deprivation and Community Needs Index (England, Scotland, and Wales). 

This contextual information for the panel will be limited in terms of granularity and coverage and we encourage bidders to make reference to existing local data to support your applications.

3. Further supplementary information

Bidders will also be required to submit the information outlined in the ‘Further supplementary information’ section below.

Format requirements

Your bid must follow the below guidelines:

• The main bid document must be submitted in PDF format and must not exceed 30 A4 pages in total (excluding supplementary information).
• The datasheet should be submitted in open document (.ODS) or Microsoft Excel (.XLSX) format. 
• The supplementary information must be collated as a separate single Appendix. This must be submitted in PDF format and must not exceed 20 A4 pages in total.
• The Letters of support must be collated as a separate single document. This must be submitted in PDF format and must not exceed 10 letters or 20 A4 pages in total.

General points:

• Bids may include pictures and graphics to enhance the material, but these will be included as part of the page limit.
• Links and QR Codes are not allowed and should not be included in bids.
• Bids must be written in no smaller than 10-pitch font.

How will bids be assessed?

The main bid document, economic and social outputs datasheet and supplementary information will be reviewed by the expert advisory panel. Successful bids must demonstrate how they meet competition criteria and show potential to make a significant contribution to the aims of the UK City of Culture programme. Bids will be assessed by the expert advisory panel against the competition aims and criteria and it is expected that bids will demonstrate how they fulfil all the aims and criteria in detail.

To support the assessment process, additional comments on each bid will be sought from experts in DCMS and select external partners to ensure that expert place-based views are considered as part of the assessment. These partners include, but may not be limited to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Scottish government and Welsh Government. DCMS will share your bids with these organisations for this purpose. Please see our General Privacy Notice for how we process your information. The panel will also be provided with statistics and data on your place for contextual purposes.

Guiding principles

When crafting their bids, bidders should take note of the following guiding principles which are drawn from the criteria. Sir Phil Redmond, the expert advisory panel Chair, has articulated these to distil what he wants to see in a strong bid:

Sustained step change: we want your UK City of Culture year to be just the beginning of a bigger, sustained culture-led step change and wider place-based strategic plan underpinning the bid’s vision.

Legacy planning and maintaining momentum: too often ‘legacy’ is talked about as something post-event – but the year itself should be the starting point of using the cultural programme as part of a wider strategic vision. Plans to maintain momentum beyond 2029 need to be at the centre of your proposed programme.

Authentic voice: we want your local story and character to shine through and the voices of local communities to be heard loud and clear. 

Ambition: we want to see big and bold programmes and plans which include major cultural events alongside community and grassroots projects. 

Innovation: we want to see an extraordinary programme that takes the story of your place out to the wider world via cultural interventions and programming that speaks to both your communities and audiences across the UK and beyond.

Impact: we want to see a succinct set of achievable and focused impacts linked to your vision that will make a real difference for people and place.

Local support: we want to see clear support and championing from your local leaders.

Culture: we want to see a broad and creative interpretation of what culture is and what it means to your place, and how curiosity and creativity is found in all sectors, disciplines and communities. We want to see interesting and innovative collaborations that make sense in your place and we want to feel this imagination, individuality and ambition articulated through the bid.

Main bid questions

The questions that need to be answered in your bid are numbered. Your bid should present these questions, and your responses, in the order shown below.

Beneath each question are prompts which are drawn from the criteria and wider guidance and should be used as a guide in your responses. These expand on the main questions and help clarify what the panel and DCMS want you to think through and wish to see in your bid.

Your story

1. What is your place’s story, and how does it contribute to a clear and cohesive local identity? 

• Is the story compelling and is the local identity cohesive and clear?

Your vision for place

2. What is the strategic vision for your place by 2034?

• How will your place look and feel in 2034?

• Is the vision ambitious, creative, distinctive and clearly linked to the communities, identity and story of the place? 

• Does the vision articulate a clear, realistic and achievable transformational step change for place and people?

• How is your programme designed to launch and contribute to this vision?

• Does the vision show commitment to long term transformation and position the UK City of Culture as the start of a bigger, sustained culture-led step change?

Impact and transformation

3. How will your programme address and tackle your local priorities and needs (as identified and evidenced in your datasheet)?

• Is it clear why transformation is crucial for your place, and how it will improve the lives of local people and create a sustainable economic impact?

• Is it clear that the programme is designed to tackle or facilitate this transformation process?

• Is it clear how the programme will boost investment and the visitor economy to deliver economic growth?

• Is it clear how the programme will support regional and national growth plans?

• Is it clear how the programme will deliver jobs and skills opportunities?

• Have key barriers to growth been identified, along with how the programme will help to address these?

4. How is UK City of Culture 2029 key to delivering this?

• Is it clear how UK City of Culture is key to delivering your vision? 

• Is it clear how you will maintain momentum toward your strategic vision?

Supplementary information required: Please supplement your response by completing the ‘Economic and social outputs datasheet’. This asks you to provide quantitative data on baselines, specify the projected impact of UK City of Culture, and demonstrate the level of need in detail, and outline further economic and social qualitative data. Further instructions for completion can be found in the information guide.

Community engagement and empowerment

5. How have local communities, and local strategic and creative partners, shaped your bid and informed your vision?

• Please refer to the key findings from any consultation undertaken.

• Are the consultation processes (and methodology for these) with a wide range of community stakeholders clearly set out?

6. How will you empower, be accountable to and actively devolve decision-making to local people during the programme and maintain momentum towards its legacy?

• Are the plans to empower communities and devolve decision making to them both credible and achievable?

7. How will you increase opportunities for accessing culture across all your communities, and particularly for young people and those with lower levels of engagement?

• Does the bid actively and creatively attempt to engage with young people, more deprived groups and less culturally engaged communities?

• Please provide a summary here, more detail on audience engagement is required in the Datasheet.

Your programme

8. What are the main themes and components of your UK City of Culture programme? 

• This should include key ‘show stopper’ moments that will draw national attention and maintain momentum throughout the year and into the future toward your stated vision.

• Is the proposed programme creatively ambitious, distinctive, compelling, and rooted in the story of the place? 

• Does the programme reflect a broad interpretation of culture across differing sectors and communities in your place?

• What co-commissioning will enhance your bid and which organisations do you want to collaborate with? 

• What makes this programme unique? 

9. How will you embed environmental sustainability in your activities?

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix A: Programme and venues’ an indicative outline programme for your UK City of Culture 2029 year and the principal venues in your area.

UK-wide and global

10. Which specific elements of your programme will reach out across the four nations, to strengthen and celebrate the UK’s shared story to all audiences?

• In addition to exploring local links, is the bid outward looking and drawing on UK-wide elements in an embedded and meaningful way, including through creative partnerships and programming?

11. If important to your place and its story, which specific elements of your programme will reach out internationally and positively contribute to the UK’s global reputation for cultural and artistic excellence? 

• If your programme has an international element please make this clear.

Your assets

12. What are your place’s main cultural and community assets and how will you build on and maximise these? 

• These may include, but are not limited to, buildings and spaces, living heritage, organisations and collections, and artists and practitioners.

• Does the bid show a strong understanding of the place’s cultural assets?

13. What are the main gaps, weaknesses and under-developed opportunities in your existing cultural offer and how will you use UK City of Culture to address these?

• Does the bid show a strong understanding of the place’s cultural gaps?

Partnerships and collaboration

14. Who will you collaborate and partner with to deliver your programme? 

• This should include reference to cultural organisations, practitioners, artists and networks at a local, regional and national level. This should also include reference to cultural organisations, practitioners, artists and networks at an international level if important to your place and story.

• Are the plans for collaboration and partnerships broad yet strategic?

• Has a cross-sector approach been taken, informed by a broad definition of culture?

15. How will you build a volunteering programme that has a strong potential to boost community cohesion alongside helping to deliver your programme?

Track record

16. What demonstrable track record do you and partners have in (1) delivering major cultural events programmes, (2) using culture to deliver regeneration, community cohesion, jobs and skills and (3) maximising the legacy of events?

17. How have you used what you have learned previously in developing your UK City of Culture bid?

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix B: Track Record’ a list of past events and activities that have been managed by you and your partners over the last 5 years.

Creative leadership

18. In order to deliver both your vision and bid, what Creative Leadership model are you planning to implement?

19. Which individuals and groups have been the key driving agents in developing your Vision for place?

• Over the course of planning for and delivering your cultural programme, how will you ensure a strong and stable creative leadership team, and minimise changes to this team? 

• If there are changes, how will you ensure continuity of leadership?

Governance and management

20. Which organisation is leading your bid?

21. Which organisation would be: 

a. accountable for your programme (the recognised Accountable Body, as defined in the guidance)
b. responsible for delivering your programme (the Delivery Body, as defined in the guidance). This may be the same organisation but does not need to be.

• Is a bid lead, Accountable Body and Delivery Body clearly designated and meeting the requirements in the guidance?

• Is there a clear and formal commitment of support and ongoing engagement from the local authority or the strategic authority?

22. Who else is involved in developing and supporting the bid?

• Is there clear evidence of a diverse range of cross-sector organisations and individuals supporting and contributing to the bid?

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix C: Bidding team’ to your bid a list of all the organisations and individuals who have been involved in the development of the bid and indicate their role in the development.

Please supply alongside your bid letters of support from key partners (max 10 and max 20 pages in total), including the leader of the relevant local authorities.

Promotion

23. How will you promote your title and programme, both internally and externally, on the lead up to and throughout your delivery year?

• What local, regional and national partners would you work with?

• What are your provisional plans for traditional and social media, campaigns, spokespeople and maximising the brand through local realm dressing?

Readiness

24. How does your bid align with other government funds and initiatives that are focused on place-making?

• Has the bid sufficiently considered how their plans fit within wider government initiatives and sought opportunities to align with these?

25. What existing infrastructure (including digital, transport and visitor) already exists to support your plans and ability to deliver an ambitious year-long programme?

• Is a clear understanding of strengths and weaknesses of infrastructure shown? Are plans to build infrastructure realistic and convincing?

26. How will you prioritise building up your infrastructure ahead of 2029? If your infrastructure is more limited, how will you leverage UK City of Culture to develop this on a permanent or temporary basis?

27. What are your plans for managing visitors, ensuring sufficient capacity and meeting access and other requirements?

28. What is your delivery structure and what are your plans to scale up a delivery team at pace with the appropriate skills required?

29. What robust governance with clearly defined responsibilities will you put in place to support deliverability in time for 2029?

30. What are your key risks and mitigations?

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix D: Project Management’ your project management and governance documents, including a risk assessment.

Funding

31. How much do you expect it to cost to deliver your proposed programme?

• Have the overall costs and fundraising plans been tested as realistic and credible?

32. How much additional funding, over and above the DCMS prize grant and existing levels of support for culture in your area, will you leverage and what is your strategy for raising this? 

• Have a wide range of funding sources been fully considered?

• Please reference any commitments or funding already secured.

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix E - Budget’:
1. an outline budget for the programme
2. a breakdown of funding sources for the budget

Maintaining momentum

33. How does UK City of Culture align with or embed into existing local and regional strategies and plans to maintain momentum? How will this extend beyond 2029?

• Is your bid well embedded in wider strategies and plans to give us confidence that it has the best possible chance of having a positive legacy beyond 2029?

34. How will you maintain and develop expertise, funding, governance structures and delivery partnerships beyond 2029?

• Are legacy roles and responsibilities clearly defined?

35. How will UK City of Culture 2029 leave a lasting legacy for your place and its cultural provision?

• Are legacy delivery structures to maintain momentum considered in the bid and clearly defined?

• Is there a clear plan to transition from bid, to delivery, to maintaining  momentum on the vision?

Evaluation and Monitoring

36. How will you measure, evaluate and share learning on the implementation, impact and value of your UK City of Culture programme? 

• Are key metrics to monitor the programme identified?

• Is the approach to data collection robust and does it have the strong potential to contribute to an improved understanding of what place-based cultural interventions can achieve?

• Will evaluation be used to inform implementation and decision making in flight (and not just at the end of the programme)?

• Are evaluation challenges and mitigations considered? 

• Do the plans build on the evaluation of Bradford and other previous UK City of Culture title holders? 

• Are plans to disseminate evaluation findings included? 

Supplementary information required: Please include as ‘Appendix F’ to your bid a Theory of Change.

Scalability

37. How have you planned your programme with scalability in mind, and which elements would you take forward in the event of being a ‘runner-up’ in receipt of a £125,000 grant?

Further supplementary information

The following should be supplied alongside your main bid and datasheet.

Appendix A: Programme and venues

(i) Indicative outline programme for 2029 (and the lead-up period if you wish). Please give information about your main events, up to 15 in total:

• Theme
• Description of event/commission
• Location
• Timing and Duration
• Delivery and ticket costs
• Expected Attendance
• Reach - local/ regional/ UK-wide

(ii) List of existing venues and capacities, to include:

• Name of Venue
• Description
• Capacity

(iii) In addition to the venues listed above, please describe what access you have to other venue space (e.g community centres, city or town halls, libraries, schools, colleges, universities, places of worship, stage/dance schools, cinemas or green spaces used for used for outdoor arts, music and theatre).

Appendix B: Track Record

List of past events and activities that have been managed by the lead bid organisation and partners over the last 5 years. Please give examples indicating the nature, duration, success measures and approximate cost of events/activities.

Appendix C: Bidding team

List of all the organisations and individuals who have been involved in the development of the bid and indicate their role in the development, highlighting those that would transition to both delivery and maintaining future momentum phases.

Appendix D: Project management

Project management and governance documents, including a governance diagram of all key delivery partners; roles and responsibilities clearly defined and a risk assessment. This need be no longer than 3 pages.

Risk assessment should include:

• Risk number
• Description of risk
• Likelihood (low, medium, high)
• impact (low, medium, high)
• Mitigation

Appendix E: Budget

Indicative outline budget for the programme. The budget should be plotted by financial year, include clear objectives and milestones in each financial year and show evidence that optimism bias has been factored in (particularly for capital works), as well as contingency in budget forecasts.

i) Costs - spending on hosting UK City of Culture 2029

This table should include resources devoted solely to hosting UK City of Culture 2029 and under the control of the delivery organisation

By year: 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030

Type

• Admin Management  
• Marketing Programme  
• Cultural Programme
• Evaluation and legacy planning  
• Total

ii) Funding sources for the budget for hosting UK City of Culture 2029

This table should include funding sources that will be devoted solely to hosting UK City of Culture 2029 and under the control of the delivery organisation, in addition to the DCMS prize grant. 

By year: 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030

Source

• Local government;  
• Other public funding;
• Other funders e.g. trusts and foundations;
• Philanthropy and donations;
• Individual and corporate sponsorship;  
• Sale revenue (e.g. from ticket sales); 
• Gifts in kind;  
• Other (detail);
• Total

(iii) Status of intended funding

Source

Amount £m

Conditions to meet?

Current status: Not yet discussed/ discussing/ committed in principle/ committed

When and how funding will become definite

Risk that (a) amount will be less (b) of no funding: (a) low / (b) none

Appendix F: Theory of Change

This should include key metrics to support evaluation and monitoring plans. These metrics should be related to your intended outcomes.

A Theory of Change should demonstrate how your proposal’s activities will produce specific outcomes. It should map the logic from inputs/activities to outputs and impact, to show that your proposals are well considered. You should provide a simple ‘high-level’ Theory of Change taking the form of a visual representation of the change you expect to see. 

You may wish to refer to the Theories of Change developed by previous UK Cities of Culture and in published evaluation strategies. You can also seek inspiration from the Evidence Review of UK Cities of Culture and Measuring the Legacy and Impact of Major Events. You may also wish to refer to the Magenta Book for guidance on Theories of Change.

Supply separately: Letters of support

Letters of support from key partners, including the leader of the relevant local authorities (maximum 10 letters and no more than 20 pages in total).