The first UK Town of Culture title has been bid on by five Devon towns, with 3m of the cake available to enhance festivals, venues and community initiatives.

The UK Town of Culture competition will be shortlisted in the spring, with each community on the shortlist given £60,000 to assist in producing full bids, with a winner announced early in 2027.

Ashburton and Buckfastleigh have united in a joint bid, which is based on a bustling year-round arts programme, although Ilfracombe feels that it is a dramatic history and dramatic modern art that will provide it with a strong narrative.

In Barnstaple, community energy is leading the bid, in Sidmouth, the mix of coastal beauty and festival culture is being pitched, and Teignmouth is hoping its creative identity and its musical roots will be its selling point.

According to Ilfracombe bid Charmaine Lovett, there was a “vast amount of history” in the seaside town that included shipwrecks, smugglers and sea and lighthouse battles.

“There is a lot of stuff that has happened here, and we would love to celebrate that and tell that story,” she said.

It is also in the town that the controversial Damien Hirst sculpture Verity stands over the harbour.

On the south coast at Sidmouth, Hilary Nelson, who is part of the bid committee, said: “We are truly blessed with where we are, and we also have the Unesco World Heritage site Jurassic Coast here, but we are also blessed with a vibrant cultural scene which includes the annual folk festival.”

Peter Buffery of the Barnstaple bid, saying that “the town had loads going on.”

“It has arts organisations, community groups and has recently received investment that has created a new performing arts venue and new studios and workshop space,” he said.

Sam Lock, a resident of Teignmouth, remarked that “it ought to win since it is already a very powerful cultural identity created by its people, its history and its innovativeness.”

“The opportunity will bring us a chance to expand it to make it more accessible to more people within the entire town,” he said.

Andy Williamson, a representative of the Ashburton and Buckfastleigh bid, replied: “We already are the UK town of culture, everything that is going on here in Ashburton and Buckfastleigh, in essence, it is culture going on here 24/7.”