Bournemouth to apply for city status

Bournemouth is to apply for city status – after a vote by the town’s charter trustees.

The decision was announced towards the end of a five-hour BCP council meeting on Tuesday evening.

Councillors were told that both Poole and Christchurch councillors had looked at the idea and both had decided not to go ahead with an application.

The only other city status application locally has come from Dorchester, which previously tried to gain city status a decade ago.

Tuesday evening’s BCP council meeting was told that the Bournemouth decision to apply had been made by a majority vote at the last meeting of the town’s Charter Trustees, but which would require the BCP Council to process the application paperwork.

Deputy BCP leader Cllr Philip Broadhead said applications had been invited to mark the Queen’s 70th anniversary as monarch and was an honour in name only.

He said the council did not see any appetite to go ahead with a BCP-wide council bid and left the decision up to the individual towns to decide.

“We are one, big, BCP area for a lot of things but we must maintain the sovereignty of our three individual towns…we asked them to make that decision; they’ve had that debate and what we are doing tonight ..is to passport that decision,” he said.

He said the application would amount to three or four pages and would have no financial implications for the unitary council.

Cllr Andy Hadley, Poole town, said he opposed the move, claiming that with one application from the area, it, by definition, down-graded both Poole and Christchurch.

“Having merged Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole the pursuit of city status of one of the three, by default, demotes the other two to being part of the greater Bournemouth City. Precisely what Christchurch residents overwhelmingly rejected and those of Bournemouth and Poole were not even asked…it’s a diversion of effort we do not need.”

Cllr Tony Trent said although he was a Bournemouth Charter Trustee he could not support the proposal. He said even if the time officers spent preparing the application was minimal it was still time taken away from their duties across the whole BCP area.

“We should continue as three distinct towns,” he said.

Cllr Mike Greene said he had told the Charter Trustees meeting that he was not in favour of the bid but would now support BCP passing forward the application.

“This has nothing to do with a city swallowing up a town, this is a civic status, not one that I wanted to go for but I will support that civic right of each of our towns to do what they have chosen to do,” he said.

Cllr Margaret Phipps said the move was “a big thing” but said residents had not been told about it.

“We should ask the people what they think and give them some information first,” she said.

Cllr Chris Rigby said he had voted for the application at the Trustees meeting “it’s an attitude, it’s a change of feeling…and that’s something I want to see in Bournemouth…it’s an opportunity to slightly change our identity,” he said.