City status: Queen will decide

The government has launched a competition to award city status to four British towns as part of the Queen's golden jubilee celebrations.

Ministers unveiled plans on Wednesday for the Golden Jubilee City Competition which will create a new city in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland as a mark of the Queen's 50th year on the throne.

A new Lord Mayor of a UK city will also be created by Her Majesty in a ceremony as part of the celebrations. The last was granted to Chester in 1992 to mark the 40th Anniversary of Her Majesty's Accession to the throne. It is "an exceptional distinction" conferred on the Mayors of a few - usually long-established and important - cities.

For the first time there will be an official definition of what a city is based on three notable features; significance regionally or nationally, historical or Royal features an a forward-looking attitude. The actual honour of being awarded status will remain solely in the Royal prerogative.

The competition, launched by the lord chancellor Lord Irvine of Lairg, follows the millennium city competition which saw Brighton and Hove, Inverness and Wolverhampton each achieve city status. Only 17 towns have been elevated in status in the last century.

Some 38 towns sought to become cities last time around and competition is expected to be fierce.

"There has been quite a lot of unhappiness in the past because there weren't any guidelines and towns were not told what was being looked for. What people don't realise is that it isn't necessary to have a cathedral in order to be a city," said a spokesman for the Lord Chancellor.

"All applications will be considered on their individual merits. Although guidelines have been issued on this occasion, they are not criteria, but merely suggestions as to what a town might include in an application. Population size will only be considered, as a possible measure of a town's significance within its region, if applicants in contention are otherwise evenly matched," she said.

English towns tipped to enter the race include Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Chelmsford, Colchester, Croydon, Doncaster, Dover, Guildford, Ipswich, Luton, Maidstone, Medway, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Preston, Reading, Shrewsbury and Atcham, Southend-on-Sea, Southwark, Stockport, Swindon, Telford and Warrington.

In Scotland, Ayr, Paisley and Stirling are set to join the competition whilst Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, Newport, Newtown, St Asaph and Wrexham are in the running to become the newest city in Wales.

City status is considered to be a "rare mark of distinction" granted by the Queen through the award of letters patent.

The deadline for local authorities to send their applications to the Lord Chancellor's department is Friday, October 12, 2001.

To mark her silver jubilee in 1977 the Queen awarded city status to Derby.

Following the millennium competition, there are now 61 cities in the UK - 49 in England, four in Wales, five in Scotland and three in Northern Ireland.