Final Push For City Status

By John Stratford, 3rd January 2012, 11:48

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Some of the towns hoping to be named as cities in 2012 have made a final push to try and get the status.

The Queen's due to announce the creation of at least one new city in the UK in February 2012, to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

Milton Keynes, Luton and Corby are all in the running.  Milton Keynes' bid team sent the Queen a Christmas card containing a poem written by Milton Keynes' poet laureate Mark Niel.  It urges her Majesty to give Milton Keynes city status.  Luton's bid team have set up an e-petition calling for Luton to be made a city.

Here is the poem Milton Keynes' bid team sent to the Queen in a Christmas card in December 2011:

Status Update: An itty-bitty city ditty
Your majesty, we most humbly request
Please consider our bid and do your best
To grant the desire that beats in our chest
Ma'am, make us a city.

Though we're modern, there's history to unfold;
Roman Roads, Bletchley Park and Bronze age Gold
In Stony Stratford Cock and Bull was (and sometimes still is) told
Ma'am, make us a city.

You can snowboard or ski while still indoors
Cycle by the canal or walk Willen's shore
We have world champions and esprit de corps
Ma'am, make us a city.

We're fertile ground for talent and the arts
From jazz at the Stables to Proms in the park,
Galleries and theatres and public art
Ma'am, make us a city.

A welcoming, vibrant community
Home to the Open University
To turn us down would be such a pity

Open spaces and trees mark the seasons
Ma'am, make us a city
And yet more arguments I can squeeze in
Two hundred, thirty-eight thousand reasons
Ma'am, make us a city.