Rosie Niven

I will freely admit that I never quite got over the fact that NewcastleGateshead lost out to Liverpool in the race to become capital of culture in 2008.

I remember being at the announcement in 2003 sitting in front of a celebrity backer of the Liverpool bid who was telling someone on the phone that he couldn’t believe it. Well, neither could I.

Since then, us Geordies have harboured many different theories on why the NewcastleGateshead bid didn’t get the nod. Was Peter Greenaway’s proposed light festival too high brow for the judges? Did we have too many cultural attractions in place already? Was it a conspiracy?

But at least we Geordies can console ourselves with the fact that Newcastle is outdoing Liverpool in the sustainability stakes. In a league table published this week by Forum for the Future, Liverpool came bottom of list that ranked the UK’s largest cities on environmental impact, quality of life and ‘future proofing’. Newcastle came eighth.

The winners, Brighton and Hove, will surely relish the mantle of being the UK’s most sustainable city. I bet the person at the council who orders stationery is on the phone to the printers right now ordering new compliments slips and headed paper.

However, apart from the accolade itself, Brighton and Hove will have very little to show for their efforts. The capital of culture status is estimated to bring more than £1bn of investment to Liverpool. But there are no big prizes for the city that tops the sustainability league – apart from the satisfaction of having a smaller carbon footprint and better quality of life for residents then your rivals.

Perhaps we should encourage investment in creating sustainable cities through a Capital of Culture style competition. Like the Capital of Culture, it would rotate around all the European countries and offer the successful bidder grants to create a legacy of sustainable infrastructure.

The winner would be the city who puts forward the best proposal setting out how to make their city more sustainable. This city would have to have a track record of delivering sustainability projects. So perhaps, Newcastle might actually have an opportunity to win something significant for a change.