Doncaster city status should not blind us to enormous challenges - Jayne Dowle

Doncaster, our region’s own new appointment, has been slightly more circumspect in its reaction to the fact that it’s about to become the second city in South Yorkshire. No chivalric announcements. No pumping the air. Just a quiet announcement of civic pride and hope for better times.

Dan Fell, chief executive of Doncaster Chamber, one of the bid’s leaders, said that he was “looking forward to an even more prosperous future for South Yorkshire now”. You have to take your hat off to Mr Fell for his hard work and determination. However, I’m slightly worried that he might be better off using the conditional tense: “We’re going to see huge reputational and economic benefits from this, attracting more businesses and skilled workers into the area,” he insists.

Hopefully. Maybe. Let’s see. There is absolutely no guarantee that ‘city’ status will confer any kind of special blessing on Doncaster, especially in these uncertain economic times when global forces are much more powerful than any local lobby. And before you say anything, it’s certainly not sour grapes because I’m from Barnsley, Doncaster’s beleaguered next-door neighbour.

It’s less than 10 miles from my front door to the sign announcing that I’m about to ‘discover the spirit’ of Doncaster. When I was a child – at Doncaster Road Junior and Infants School – Doncaster held a kind of allure, a glamour even.

If you’re reading this from outside Yorkshire, you may laugh, but it’s true. Proximity to the A1, a border with Lincolnshire, a distinguished Roman history, a famous racecourse and then an airport and now a zoo, the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. All these add to its cachet. Back in the 1970s, I remember my grandparents taking me and my sister on the bus shopping to Doncaster’s Arndale Centre, (in) famous for its statue of a naked couple embracing. If that wasn’t sophistication, I didn’t know what was.

I recall the debates going back decades; some people thought that Doncaster was a city already, by dint of its Minster.

Barnsley, meanwhile, is most definitely a town. Lots of places are towns and should be proud to be so and remain so. What will happen if all towns want to become cities, in case they miss out?

Sorry, I’m not being cynical. Just realistic. I’m a firm believer that the best cities have grown organically over the centuries, twisting and evolving with their enclaves and their suburbs.

Being handed the honour is not quite the same; just ask Preston in Lancashire, which became a city in 2002 for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, and still feels inferior against mighty Manchester.

Mr Fell, in his laudably positive way, believes that now the South Yorkshire region is home to two cities, we’ll be granted “an even bigger seat at the table when it comes to engaging national government”.

But author John Elledge, founding editor of the CityMetric data website (now CityMonitor), which gathers and analyses information about cities around the world says: “It’s nothing more than a bauble – and not a cheap one at that.” The Queen rubber stamps which places should be honoured, Mr Elledge points out, but the government of the day makes the decision. “You look at Doncaster,” he adds. “There’s been a complete lack of any real investment there for years. So what is this? Chuck it city status and hope that distracts everyone from the fact nothing else is being done.”

And, we might add, at the 2019 General Election Doncaster proved a notable outpost of the crumbling ‘Red Wall’. Don Valley, held by Labour since 1922, fell to the Conservatives, unseating former Minister Caroline Flint.

Her replacement, Nick Fletcher, has a majority of just 3,630. Tricky. Especially with an ever-more vociferous Ed Miliband, Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero, in Doncaster North, and highly-respected deputy speaker Dame Rosie Winterton, in Doncaster Central since 1997.

You can see how the wider political situation might have slightly tipped the balance when it came to Boris Johnson (or whoever it is) getting out the rubber stamp. Still, let’s celebrate the achievement and be pleased that it’s here in South Yorkshire, which needs all the help it can get on the regional, national and international map.

Let’s not, however, let a load of bunting and a city badge blind us to the enormous challenges both Doncaster and South Yorkshire face in coming months and years, when the party is over.