Doncaster city status project director pens book about successful bid

The Race for City Status: How Doncaster Became One of Britain’s Newest Cities, tells the story of Doncaster’s winning campaign to achieve city status, securing the coveted title in 2022 by entering a civic honours competition to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.

This culminated in the visit by King Charles III in November 2022 to confer city status at a historic ceremony held at Doncaster’s Mansion House.

Now Jim Carley, who served as project director for the campaign, has charted the story of how Doncaster’s winning proposal was developed and written.

Doncaster became Yorkshire’s eighth city, after Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Ripon, Sheffield, Wakefield, and York, and is the county’s first new city since the 1890s.

The book not only recounts some of the things that Doncaster is most famous for, such as horseracing and legendary locomotives like Flying Scotsman and Mallard, but also some of its lesser-known credentials as a city in waiting.

It’s a story with everything from Paddington Bear to Ivanhoe, and from the invention of butterscotch to prize winning budgerigars.

The city status campaign was developed by a partnership involving Doncaster Council, Doncaster Chamber of Commerce, the NHS, local colleges, Club Doncaster, and many other local organisations.

The book shares some of the challenges which the campaign had to overcome, and the political backdrop which shaped the competition.

Whilst the story is focused on Doncaster, the book visits some of the other competitor towns from around the UK, and takes inspiration from cities around the world, in asking what it really means to be a city in the 21st century.

Mr Carley owns a Doncaster based business which provides proposal writing services to his clients, and he is also the current Vice President of Doncaster Chamber of Commerce.

He said: “It was an absolute honour and privilege to be the project director for this campaign, and to write Doncaster’s historic winning application to

become a city.

"So many different people played a role in that success. I hope this book does honour to those achievements and is a faithful replay of Doncaster’s amazing journey.”

The book is published in paperback by Fisher King Publishing and is available from Amazon and all good on-line bookstores.