“We are simply the best”: Why Halifax’s iconic buildings could give town the edge in Town of Culture 2028 competition

The shortlist of towns which have made it through to the next step of the Town of Culture 2028 competition is expected to be announced this spring, following the submission deadline on March 31.

The competition is the first of its kind for towns, following the launch of the City of Culture competition in 2009, which has seen four cities deliver a year of cultural activity.

The government hopes the Town of Culture competition will help to celebrate towns and create a “lasting cultural legacy,” recognising that culture is “not confined to our largest metropolitan centres.”

The winning town will receive £3million, and the other two finalists will each receive £250,000, to deliver “an ambitious programme of cultural activity in 2028.”

Unsurprisingly, dozens of towns have put themselves forward for the competition, with bidders in Yorkshire alone reportedly including Keighley, Ripon, Richmond, Helmsley, Whitby, Scarborough, Ilkley, Barnsley, Knaresborough, Pocklington, Driffield, Beverley, and Otley, as well as Halifax.

As towns across the country eagerly wait to see if they have progressed to the next stage of the competition, the Courier has been looking at what might give Halifax the edge in the competition.

Chris Harris is one of the directors of Halifax Heritage Tours, a community interest company set up four years ago to “preserve, and support and encourage people to look at the heritage in Halifax.”

Speaking about Halifax’s bid to be Town of Culture 2028, she said: “I think anything that brings money into the town, tourism, so that we can share our history and our heritage, and show people what we’ve got here.

“We might be a small town in the North, the smallest of the five areas of West Yorkshire, but we are simply the best, and we want everybody to know that.”

Chris said some of the buildings in Halifax are 150 years old, describing the town’s heritage buildings as “magic.”

She said: “From almshouses to People’s Park, to mansions, the legacy that industrialists and philanthropists gave to this town from the mid-1800s.

Speaking in the Borough Market, she added: “Look at this building, look at this roof, look at what we’ve got here, it’s magic.”

Jeremy Hall, president of the Halifax Civic Trust and the chairman and managing director of Dean Clough Limited, praised not only the “magnificent” buildings in Halifax, but they way they have been reused.

The Dean Clough mill complex is just one example, having been built between 1840 and 1870, and renovated into shops, eateries, galleries, offices and more.

The Piece Hall, a former 18th century cloth hall, now houses dozens of shops and hosts international artists every year during its summer concert series.

The old courthouse on Blackwall, built at the end of the 19th century, has undergone renovations and is now home to Calderdale Music Service, providing rehearsal and performance space to young people in the borough.

Jeremy said: “We are so fortunate that within the town we have so many examples of fantastic buildings, and they’re numerous: the town hall, the Piece Hall, Dean Clough, Shibden Hall, Bankfield Museum — there are so many examples of these magnificent buildings that have been created by our ancestors.

“And I think what’s doubly to celebrate is the fact that not only do we have the buildings but actually there’s such a drive to reuse these buildings in a way that brings about great activity, events.

“You think of all the things which go on in the Piece Hall; its fantastic for promoting the town, it’s fantastic for people seeing the quality and the calibre of the environment that we’re fortunate to be custodians of here.”

On Halifax’s chances of winning the Town of Culture competition, Jeremy said: “I think Halifax has a fantastic chance of winning.”

He added: “I think categorically that the town has every opportunity of being the lucky recipient of that, but whatever the outcome, the fact is that we’re a town with wonderful assets and wonderful attributes, and the opportunity then to reuse them in the way that the town does, so I think it would be fantastic if we get it, but we’re still on a fabulous trajectory irrespective of that.”