Doncaster can always get better: Why your Free Press backed city status campaign

The announcement on the stroke of midnight was the end of a road first officially launched in 2000, but for which preparations had begun even earlier.

Throughout the last quarter of a century, your Free Press has been at the forefront of that campaign.

We’ve seen a succession of editors, reporters and offices all come and go in that time, but our focus has always been the same, Doncaster news for Doncaster people, by Doncaster people.

Ever since we first arrived in 1925, your Free Press has campaigned for a better town. We’ve shone light into dark corners – and covered all aspects of the town both good and bad.

That’s us. That’s our job. That’s what we do. It might not always be pleasant or pretty to read reports about murders, knife crimes, shootings, drugs and rapes. Believe us, we’d really rather not cover such topics.

And of course, we’ll always continue to bring you the good news stories too – the community events, the success stories, school achievements, sporting prowess and much more.

The decision to back the bid was not done so on a whim.

No doubt there will be plenty of residents asking ‘what’s the point of it?’ Let me assure you that we asked the very same question.

We’ve got the airport, the racecourse, the wildlife park. We’re at the heart of an incredible distribution network thanks to the phenomenal transport links. What more do we need?

Well, in our opinion, we always need more. And any possible advantage towards getting more should be explored.

Doncaster has a tremendous amount going for it and each year seems to gain something new to be proud of.

But it also finds itself in the shadow of two major cities, sitting in the north of England which we all know full well has a tough time in competition with our friends in the south.

City status will not transform Doncaster overnight. But it has the ability to give the borough a leg up when it comes to the competition for investment and tourism which will continue to drive us forward.

As well as the status, the bid and campaign themselves have the opportunity to do really positive things for the borough.

The focus is on pride in Doncaster and celebrating what is special about this place and its people. At the Free Press we will never miss an opportunity to do that.

There will no doubt be detractors, insisting there are far more worthy causes to be focusing attention on in the town.

And those people are not wrong.

There are incredibly important problems facing individuals, neighbourhoods and the entire population on the environment, employment, welfare, crime, social issues and much more that simply must be addressed and sorted.

As always, we want to highlight and do all we can to fix these issues.

What we want more than anything is for Doncaster to emerge from this bidding process even stronger, regardless of the outcome.

We’ve got a brilliant town but it can always get better.