Talk Of The Passion That Sealed Hull’s 2017 Success

Now that the dust has settled, and the residents of Hull are coming to terms with their successful bid for the UK City of Culture Award, everyone is trying to identify exactly what was the reason for the award.

Obviously the residents themselves feel that it was simply down to the fact that their city was the best, but it is more than that. Hull beat off strong competition from Dundee, Leicester and Swansea Bay, any of which would have been a credit to the award if they had been successful.

Is this what they mean by "Hullness"?

But it took Phil Redmond, as the chair of the panel, to try and put into words what he saw in his capacity as a judge. The creator of TV programmes Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks, said: "I looked into the eyes of the bid team and looked at the passion."

He said Hull's team had been able to sell their bid and accompanying written submission to the independent panel awarding the accolade. "There was a lot of mention of 'Hullness' from the team and there was a lot of feeling in that word.

“Hull reminds me of Liverpool, it too is a city on the edge, on the periphery. And that gives it a certain feel". Liverpool was the European Capital of Culture in 2008.

He was pleased to see mentions of the city of Hull spread across social media in the wake of his panel's decision. "It is the best metric we can see of how people like the decision," he said.

In the 24 hours of the decision day there were 75,000 tweets mentioning Hull and the hashtags #HullYes and #CongratulationsHull both trended, the bid team said. Jacqui Gay, who led communications for the city's bid, said "We wanted the judges to hear the people of Hull ringing in their ears."

Ms Gay said content was created for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but the campaign was run by both the bid team and the community, although Mr Redmond said the strong online presence had had "no impact on the decision". In order to create “a level playing field”, the panel had tried to avoid the social media flow, he said.

Mr Redmond has jokingly said he would now rename the M62 motorway between Liverpool and Hull the "cultural corridor", and he hoped that 2017 would be a "catalytic year for the city".
In amongst all the euphoria, warnings were issued to the organisers who will now have to deliver the year-long celebration in 2017.

"The people tend to take over the organisation of the event and they will have opinions", he said. "Hull should recognise what it is... before Liverpool won the European Capital of Culture in 2008 it had had 30 to 40 years of constant attack on its economic downturn, its politics and its people. It had forgotten what a cultural and proud city it was. Now Hull has to rediscover this too."

He remarked that Hull would not be able to become a London or Barcelona overnight, but neither should it try to be. The award was a "very big prize to win", and would it would bring enormous publicity and national cultural events to the city from the leading arts organisations. Hull is the second city to hold the title after Derry-Londonderry and Mr Redmond is sure there would again be a positive feeling in East Yorkshire.

Whilst acknowledging that Derry-Londonderry had witnessed more troubles over recent years than most places,  a 46-year-old local taxi driver in Derry said he had had a "fantastic year, it was the most peaceful year of my life."