30 DEBATE


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It actually turned out to be much more cohesive and inclusive than we’d imagined and from a civic pride point of view, I’m absolutely 100 per cent behind the idea.


From a business point of view, we don’t need anyone’s permission in Blackburn to be who we are. We don’t need permission to be the entrepreneurial centre that we increasingly are.


What other town has got the headquarters of a company as big and as dynamic as Euro Garages in it? They want to be here, and they are part of the community.


I suspect the biggest win out of getting city status is the sense of cohesion, the sense you can do stuff here. We’ve a real ambition to keep our young people, so anything that makes young people feel this is a place they want to do stuff.


The groups who’ve got really involved in the promotion of the idea of city status have been youngsters. It energises them.


City status would be good. If we don’t get it we will continue, I guess, to be a town that behaves like a city.


MK: Cities are about momentum and change, and that typifies what Blackburn is about. It’s very much more action-led than plan-led. It’s got some of the characteristics of cities, like being dynamic.


It has fierce entrepreneurs, and they don’t need public investment to support them, they just need to be set free and given a framework, and people like us to give them the enabling infrastructure to do that. That’s what we do, that’s what cities do.


We have investors, we have business leaders who could be anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, half a dozen of them, but they’re all in Blackburn and they’re staying in Blackburn and they’re re-investing in Blackburn.


So, that gives us a dynamic that very few northern towns and cities have. It is also exceptionally outward looking, and it is our job to see how we can leverage some of that.


Real cities are built around economic performance, drive, culture, nightlife, day-life, a growing population, a growing housing base. We are portraying some of those characteristics.


For us, it is how we scale some of that up so we can see some of the halo effect. How we take what’s good about cities and apply, where it’s appropriate, in our setting. We’re trying to drive that impetus.


Also, the private sector needs to tell the senior politicians of the county what needs to happen to drive the whole place forward. That voice hasn’t come out as clear as it should.


AK: I don’t really feel city status would make much difference. We might get a bit of status, a bit of prestige, but the development, what’s going on in the investment side in Blackburn, it’s on a roll.


It’s going to grow bigger and bigger, and it’s not just Euro Garages. You’ve got multi-million- pound businesses in Blackburn.


We have Cathedral Square, all that investment that looks fantastic. You come out of the train station and it is like you are in Manchester.


‘Born in Blackburn, live in Blackburn, work in Blackburn’, that culture is going to stay forever. It’s not going to go up with a city status, though it may enhance it.


City status would be good. If we don’t get it we will continue, I


guess, to be a town that behaves like a city.


It may bring, possibly, more investment, more economic growth to the local communities and local businesses.


We employ 250 people across the UK, my business isn’t just Blackburn. But it started here, and I wouldn’t ever move.


It’s our home, family, community, it’s everything for us. Being called a city, that isn’t going to change any of that.


The main thing you get out of being a city is that prestige; that bit of status, that’s what I can see.


RM: The best cities never act in isolation. Manchester only really kicked on when it realised it had to work with its surrounding towns and neighbours, that it wasn’t going to just do it on its own and surrounding places had a lot of assets that it didn’t.


It’s that kind of collaboration and not fixating about gravitational pull. Not everybody has to live and work in a city centre, and post-pandemic we’ve probably proven that more than ever.


When I first came to Lancashire, in 2018, Preston at that point was referring to itself, still, as a new and a small city. At what stage do you stop calling yourself new, and stop defining yourself as small? That might be your population, but you are surrounded by a massive set of assets and value in this county.


Does Preston see itself as a city, is it seen as a city externally? That is now beginning to happen. Some of the plans like the Harris Quarter are the right plans and will be key.


When it comes to Blackburn it doesn’t necessarily matter if city status is there or not, because it already behaves like a city. It is that hub and has a good network of places that work together.


The diversity of Lancashire is a really positive thing for this county, that it has so much to offer in very many different ways and you’ve always got something positive to talk about.


I love the fact that the Blackburn bid came from civic pride and that the thinking is ‘we already behave like this’.


I’ve always thought that Lancashire has a great opportunity by being polycentric and having towns that are as big as cities but it needs them all to be successful.


PD: City status is about that civic pride. If we had both cities, Preston and Blackburn, with that corridor between the two, it unifies Lancashire much more. That’s one of the things Blackburn being a city would bring.


We’re concentrating heavily on Lancashire now, from Downtown’s perspective, and it just makes it feel more like it’s not towns all operating on their own, it’s much more of a joined-up approach.


Look at the Blackpool story. It is another town that behaves like a city. We’ve seen so much investment in Blackpool.


The new Blackpool Central project is phenomenal. There are other massive investment projects and it all started with the conference centre, which is a stunning building.


It is going to attract bigger investment. There are going to be some big conferences coming back to the town and that will have a knock-on effect. Preston will definitely benefit from that.


Again, Blackpool doesn’t operate on its own. Blackpool operates with Wyre and Fylde. It is the Fylde coast.


All the marketing and the tourism is about the Fylde coast, and if it does well, the knock-on effect for Preston and the surrounding areas is the same because it’s straight down the M55.


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