The bid – led by Gwynedd Council in partnership with Bangor University, Bangor City Council and other partners – encompasses the city itself as well as the designated Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage site and the wider Arfon and Anglesey areas.
Culture is a fundamental part of the fabric of Bangor and north-west Wales. It is weaved into our DNA and bid partners want to harness its potential to have a high-impact transformational effect on communities and people.
Gwynedd Council Leader, Councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, said: “I am delighted about the prospects of this bid and that it comes off the back of our strong working partnership with Bangor University and key partners in the wider community and area.
“We want Bangor to perform as a global, inclusive and thriving city by harnessing our rich and distinct heritage, language and culture to ensure an innovative and prosperous future for the communities and businesses of the city of Bangor and north-west Wales.
“We want people from the area, the UK and the world to feel that they want to come on a journey to Bangor, to feel welcome in the city and that they understand, appreciate and celebrate our amazing and unique area. Past Cities of Culture have had a very urban focus, and while Bangor is the main urban conurbation in the region, we believe that our bid can connect between urban Bangor and the surrounding rural hinterland.
“This bid will celebrate our Welshness, our different cultures and our connections to other UK cities and the world – where else can claim to have roofed the industrial revolution and in particular towns, cities and villages across the UK, the Commonwealth and the World?”
Mayor of Bangor, Councillor Owen Hurcum, added: “Culture speaks for itself in Bangor, we are the oldest city in Wales, our Cathedral has the oldest foundations of any still in use, we have the sea, the mountains, and a dockyard that sent slate all around the world.
“Indeed, that globalism is still here in our city, whilst we are proudly the city with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in the world and thanks to our world leading university that we have had since the 1880s we are also home to hundreds more languages and cultures that make Bangor truly the multi-cultural city we are and thoroughly deserving of this title.”
Professor Iwan Davies, Vice-Chancellor of Bangor University, said: “The University welcomes the City of Culture 2025 proposal being led by Gwynedd County Council and the opportunity it affords the city of Bangor and the surrounding area.
“The focus on the City of Bangor offers a unique opportunity from which we shall benefit. The city has so much to offer across of the UK and internationally and the University is proud to be in a position to contribute should the proposal succeed.”
