Leicester’s City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby refused to be too downhearted after hearing that Hull had won the UK City of Culture bid for 2017, beating Leicester, Dundee and Swansea Bay.
The announcement of the winner of the UK City of Culture 2017 came from Culture Secretary Maria Miller in London which was broadcast on ITV Daybreak at 07:40. At a gathering at the Curve Theatre Sir Peter thanked those behind the bid and added that the City and County would continue to move forward “Obviously we are all vey disappointed as so much hard work and energy has gone into this process. We must though continue with the momentum by bringing forward some of the highlights of our bid.”
Sir Peter added that they already had plans for an exciting and ambitious new programme of events in 2014/15, and more details of the events programme-which will run from June 2014 until December 2015-will be revealed in the coming weeks.
The Curve Chief Executive Fiona Allen also paid tribute to the hundreds of people that had ben involved in the Leicester bid while Assitant City Mayor Manjula Sood remained positive “We are already a City of Culture and Leicester is already recognised as the most multicultural City in the world”
Richard Clark from the Mighty Creatives was part of the Leicester bid team and he felt that the effort put into the bid would bring it’s own rewards “In my 20 years here I’ve never seen a City so confident, cohesive and so ambitious”
