TOP 10 CITY

A group that had hoped to make Derby a top 10 city in the UK by 2020 has scaled down its vision. Derby City Partnership (DCP), an alliance of organisations working to improve the city, has decided that Derby should simply be a place of which people can be proud. In 1995, the group released a document which contained a vision of how it wanted to make Derby a top 10 city by 2020. It has revised that document, under the new title Derby - Pride of the East Midlands. Members of the DCP say it is too difficult to measure whether Derby is a top 10 city.

Originally Derby's progress to becoming a top 10 city was measured by University of Strathclyde research on the best places to live in Britain. In 1996 Derby was ranked 20th out of 32 places. A year later it moved up two places to 18th based on issues such as crime rates, cost of living, pollution, employment and scenic qualities. However, the university no longer conducts the research. Peter Richardson, chief executive of Derbyshire Building Society and a member of the DCP board, was chairman of the marketing group which developed the new vision.

He said a number of people on the partnership felt it would be difficult to measure the original vision. "The new vision ensures that people know that Derby is in the East Midlands and that it is a city where pride is very important. Changing the vision is nothing to do with us thinking that we couldn't achieve Derby being a top 10 city." Mr Richardson said it was important not to try to measure the Pride of the East Midlands vision. He said, "We should just use the barometer of feedback from people in the city." The DCP was formed in 1995. It has since brought in £120m from Government and European grants.

The board is made up of eight representatives from the public sector, eight representatives from the private sector and eight from the voluntary sector. There are six themes within the vision, which are learning, health, culture, prosperity, environment and regeneration. The Nottingham agency devised the familiar "Derbyes! - The city where you can" slogans that have appeared on banners, billboards and posters since May 1998. The new vision will be launched at the start of DCP week on June 23.

Helen Osler, manager of DCP, said, "When we were consulting on updating our 2020 Vision, people felt that saying we were trying to get into the top 10 was too competitive and that we should not be competing with other cities. The themes within the vision are still the same. We still want to make Derby a great place. We want to create better facilities and better services."

Derby has been ranked in the bottom 100 of places to live in the UK in a survey measuring quality of life. The survey, which was based on crime, health and education in each of the UK's 408 local authority areas, places Derby 311th. Council leader Maurice Burgess dismissed the importance of such a survey saying, "I think what they really ought to do is compare like with like.... I believe we have some of the best policing.... Derby is a pleasant place to live, so these tables are meaningless." Would the tables have been meaningless if Derby had been in the top five?

The survey was carried out on behalf of Experian, which conducted a similar survey two years ago ranking Derby fifth in the country. But that survey was based on a wider range of factors, including shopping facilities and house prices. Marc Farr, who drew up the table as part of research for his PhD, said, "Derby hasn't performed particularly well in this, but the way to look at this is to compare the ranking with its average house price and, at £81,000, Derby's is very low, so house prices reflect the quality of life." Oh dear!