Lord Bassam breaks silence on city bid

Since becoming a minister, I've had to say nothing about the one subject on which just about all my local friends have been asking.

Becoming a city is itself important - the city bid was always part of a grander vision.

It is of course partly about pride of place, but also about becoming something more exciting, more challenging perhaps, more demanding.

The one word used almost universally about the Brighton and Hove bid was its 'inclusiveness'.

In other words its desire to be about the city and the aspirations of its people, its stakeholders, its private and its social entrepreneurs, the people who, after all, make the place tick.

I want city status to represent a sense of change.

It brings together Brighton and Hove - two towns into one city.

It also says the city is in itself bigger than just its boundaries - we are a city in a region, we will inevitably be seen as a regional leader, and we are already. This in turn provides us with a major opportunity.

For too long our towns were seen as lagging behind the rest of the South-East.

We were low on economic prosperity and job opportunity, low on educational performance and low scoring for investment.

Work during the last decade has changed all that.

We have larger numbers of graduates than almost any comparable town or city, and our educational performance is rising, job generation and job creation are improving and more businesses want to invest in the city.

But to secure the strength of the newest millennium city, we have to raise our game and build on our emerging strengths and adopt a radical programme to tackle some of the more intractable social problems that come with above average levels of poverty.

What are the strong points?

Undoubtedly, the imagination and diversity which Brighton and Hove does much to foster through its cultural industries and the education sector. Having two powerful universities with varying and vying educational strengths helps.

The three-week festival and the conference tourism trade provide a fantastic boost to our economy, but so too do new tech industries, the dot.com sector.

However, my vision adds to this so we can spread and share the benefits far better, far more equitably than we currently do.

I want to see the new city unlock the talents of the many for the benefit of all.

That way we all prosper and share in the prosperity.

I want to see the city fully wired and internet connected so the communications revolution doesn't pass the poorest by.

Here greater links between the universities and the growth sector industries of the new media offer potentially unlimited opportunities.

It is the same in other fields too.

Brighton and Hove has led the way in transport policies. John Prescott never ceases his praise for the quality of our bus network and the vision we showed a decade ago in adopting positive policies to getting people on to the buses.

Seven years of annual passenger number increases mean the city centre is cleaner and safer than almost any city centre I know. More can be done.

We might want some more fixed rail links established, more bus capacity developed, with more exclusive bus and taxi lanes.

This, with improved through ticketing and better park and ride, holds the key to improving communications and safer suburbs.

I'd like to see the same sort of innovative thinking in other areas.

One of the 'unique selling points' of Brighton and Hove's bid was for a 'sustainable city', stripped of party politics that means a 'greener city', with radical policies to deal with waste, energy use, building materials and the like.

Another big opportunity is the bid to become the European City of Culture for 2008.

At first look this might not seem to fit with the inclusive city vision.

But it should be integral.

We should build on the festival's strengths and diversity, but aim to make better use of what currently works for our cultural identity.

It was put to me recently that we might never have the city equivalent of a Tate Modern, but we do have endless small and specialist galleries, even home-based visual art expos.

This approach of working with the grain and involving the whole city in expressive art and cultural ecleticism has a big bonus - it be-comes democratic and in-volving in a way most cultural city bids can only dream of. It also says that not everything has to be on a grand scale to succeed.

I see the city with a strong visual art tradition stimulated through schools and the university schools of art leading the way and tapping into local talent to help 'market' the city in new and exciting ways.

One thing is for sure and that is we cannot stand still.

The City of Brighton and Hove has become synonymous with the challenge of change.

In the Seventies, Tony Hewison had the insight to make the stuffy old Brighton Council invest in a conference centre.

During the past decade we have built on that investment and Brighton and Hove plays host to the biggest and best. The change and cosmopolitan atmosphere it gave rise to has profoundly changed our city. Cultural tourism can take that dynamic into a new dimension.

The arrival of the new Dome Festival complex will make the city the 'South Bank of the South Coast'.

Together with the new library and info centre we will have facilities other cities can only dream of.

A similar approach to the Falmer location of the Albion will also bring a rich reward. Located in the New Deal zone of East Brighton, its benefits will need to be shared with the whole city as a community facility for all. A high-tech stadium with minimum environmental impact and maximum job generation.

My message is that for the city to succeed it needs to grasp whatever opportunities come along.

Our diversity should be celebrated, our differences should be our strengths.

Let's make the 21st Century the one where the homophobic culture of the social conservatives is sidelined and ensure a multi-cultural society is seen as a benefit and not as something to fear.

Back in 1996, Labour locally said the city was the future and the people are the city. Let us now put our trust in the people of the city and their talent and skill to innovate, change, lead and make Brighton and Hove the place for all.