The shortlist for the UK Town of Culture 2028 competition has been announced and sadly Pitlochry didn’t reach the final 15. 

Nearly 400 applications to the inaugural competition were received, many of which were from Scotland – clearly demonstrating both this country’s extraordinary cultural heritage and the strength of the competition! 

While we’re disappointed not to have made the shortlist, we’re really proud of the work that we put into the application to champion our community and demonstrate how Pitlochry contributes to Scotland’s story, and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to engage with us during the application process – it was great to see the real passion and pride people have for our town. 

As part of Pitlochry’s bid to become the first UK Town of Culture in 2028, we submitted a digital postcard from our picture perfect town to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The postcard can be seen on the official competition map here.

All the postcards will remain within the National Museums Liverpool’s national collection.

The experience of taking part has been really worthwhile in terms of strengthening partnerships locally, and will serve us in good stead as we work with other groups and organisations to develop plans for the Pitlochry 300 celebrations in 2028 when we will mark the 300th anniversary of the building of General Wade’s road, part of which is now Atholl Road, which brought together disparate hamlets to create the town we now know as Pitlochry. 

We would like to take this opportunity to wish the shortlisted towns the very best in the competition moving forward, with a special shout out to the Scottish finalists in particular – the Isle of Bute, Leith and Lerwick!