Chelmsford Borough Council has stated how they believe that getting city status for the town will help local businesses, so the town will be applying to be a city as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The government has said that it will upgrade one town in honour of the Queen, but Chelmsford will be facing competition from other Essex towns.
Southend, which is also entering a bid to become a city, will be up against the county town. Both towns have applied twice before, but been refused.
Roy Whitehead, the leader of the Conservative-run Chelmsford Borough Council, told BBC Essex about the city plans for Chelmsford: “We think we have the opportunity here to bring additional business to Chelmsford by being a city. Our point of view, and it’s an all-party point of view, is we need to raise the profile of the town even more than it is at the moment to attract investment into Chelmsford.
“The city of Chelmsford sounds a lot better than the town of Chelmsford, so if we’re going to get investment we’ll be better off as a city.”
“We won’t spend a lot of money applying and we won’t spend a lot of money [if] we get it. You simply fill in forms, and we have very good quality staff who are already busy working away on it, and we’ve already got stock photographs and we will ask local businesses to support us.
“We are not spending money on giant banners, giant stalls in high streets and all of the things I know we’ve done in the past.”
Southend MP David Amess said that he believed that getting city status would have a “significant impact on the morale” of the town.
Other towns that are applying for city status are Stockport, Blackpool and Reading.