The government is running a competition for towns across the UK to become cities, to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee next year.

These competitions are fairly rare with the latest round being held 10 years ago when Chelmsford, St Asaph, Perth and Armagh were the lucky winners - and large towns across the land will be scrabbling around furiously to get their bids together.

There's been plenty of talk about whether Southend should be granted city status and Sir David Amess Tory MP for Southend West often speaking out in support about the status being given to the borough.

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Her Majesty The Queen has agreed for a competition to be held to grant the prestigious and rare civic honours of ‘city status’ and ‘Lord Mayor or Lord Provost status’, to a select number of worthy towns and cities in the United Kingdom.

This will be the first time in 10 years that Her Majesty awards civic honours and the occasion comes as part of celebrations to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

As part of this government’s commitment to levelling up and increasing opportunity across the United Kingdom, local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can enter the competition and make a case for why its area deserves to be granted one of these honours. For the first time, the city status competition will also be open to applications from the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.