Forget Scotland and England; Berwick-upon-Tweed is pondering going global

While the England vs Scotland issue continues to occupy many in Berwick-upon-Tweed, forward-looking souls in the border town have set their sites higher: on global status.

Listing its wealth of ancient buildings and remarkably intact fortifications, enthusiasts for the handsome place are urging an attempt to be one of the UK's future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This is an ambitious thing to do but I can see from where I'm tapping this out, a smaller but highly successful example. People mocked when the late Jonathan Silver and others claimed that Saltaire near Bradford was worthy to rank with the Pyramids and ancient Rome. But now it does.

Berwick's counterparts of Silver & Co have just held a seminar on running a similar campaign and emerged with a mixture of optimism and caution. They have encouragingly nearby examples – Hadrian's Wall and Durham, where the castle and cathedral form two separate World Heritage Sites which, appropriately for the north, stand back to back.

The Government is also putting forward the twin monasteries of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth as its 2012 candidate to join the UK's 28 existing sites. But in Berwick, a great deal of cleaning, sprucing and blossing-up would be required.

One of the event's organisers, Bernard Shaw, takes the cautious line, saying that the sense of the meeting was that a bid in the near future would probably be unrealistic. He isn't against the idea but says:

There may be better ways to take Berwick forward, rather than something which may not be achievable. Maybe the time isn't right for the investment of time and money to invest in an objective which we might not achieve. It could be that the benefits that could come our way could be achieved more cheaply and realistically.

But the town's mayor Alan Bowlas is a more hopeful; a little. He says:

It may not be achievable, but we should probably pursue World Heritage status because I think we would pick up quite a lot of pointers on the way. It would certainly put us on the international market and improve our tourist offer in Northumberland.

Stouter hearts will be needed if the idea does go any further, but Berwick has a tradition of rising to a challenge. As well as changing hands between England and Scotland 13 times between 1482, it famously appeared as a separate party in Britain's declaration of war on Russia over the Crimea (but not in the peace treaty, to the delight of school history pupils ever since).

The meeting also heard of preliminary work on a claim to artistic fame, with Salford's L S Lowry often visiting and leaving one highly-rated painting, of Dewar's Lane.