Derby: zero to hero
Derby has been transformed from "zero to hero" in a year after a series of setbacks galvanised the city into action, according to the chairman of its marketing body.
Marketing Derby's annual meeting has heard that the series of blows that have hit the city, such as the threatened closure of the Bombardier train works and Egg's call centre, have instead been turned into a massive opportunity to promote Derby.
"This has been a year when Derby went from zero to hero in a matter of months," chairman Bob Betts told an audience of bondholders in the city's Quad arts centre on Friday.
"Derby marshalled itself in 2011 in a way that it had not managed since 1971 when Rolls-Royce was threatened. When we saw the dreadful decisions made by government about Bombardier, this city came together."
The government's decision not to award Bombardier the huge Thameslink rail contract led to the city to take major delegations to London and to meet the train maker's chief executive in Berlin. "We effectively camped outside Whitehall and ministers like Cable and Hammond heard the anger of Derby."
Betts said while the campaign had not reversed the government's decision over the rail contract, the subsequent lobbying had given the Bombardier works a reprieve with the hope of major contracts to come.
Meanwhile, a campaign following the closure of the Egg call centre had succeeded in attracting a replacement employer, Hero TSC, to the building. Hero had already replaced half of the lost jobs and there were high hopes that the reminder might also be replaced.
"Last year was the one when Derby really showed its mettle," said John Forkin, Marketing Derby's chief executive. "The spark was the Thameslink decision, which was the moment the city could either lie down and take it or stand up.
"Bombardier was an opportunity for the city. The national media could have portrayed us in a patronising way, as a damp, dark Midlands manufacturing town. Instead they rallied behind us."
