Peterborough MP calls for city to rename parkway after Queen Elizabeth II as part of Platinum Jubilee celebrations

The Queen enjoys a joke at the East of England show in 1991.

The city’s MP has made the call to honour majesty as part of the upcoming Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which officially begin in Peterborough on Thursday (June 2).

Mr Bristow has called upon the city to rename one of its parkways after the reigning monarch due to her ‘special place’ in Peterborough’s history.

The Queen has visited the city four times since ascending to the throne 1952. The first was in 1952, while she was still Princess Elizabeth. She attended the Peterborough Agricultural Show at the old showground in Eastfield.

The Queen meeting staff at the Cresset in 1978.

She also visited Burghley House on a few occasions but her first visit to Peterborough as a reigning monarch was in March 1975 when she handed out the Maundy money to 98 senior citizens – 49 to men and 49 to women, because she was 49-years-old at the time - in a special ceremony attended by more than 3,200 people at Peterborough Cathedral. She followed that with a walkabout in Bridge Street.

In 1978, a year after her silver jubilee, the Queen officially opened the new Magistrates Court and The Cresset complex at Bretton, tying both openings in with a visit to the National Shire Horse Society centenary show at Alwalton.

In May 1988, the Queen returned to the city to attend a special service to mark Peterborough Cathedral’s 750th anniversary and open both the Edith Cavell Hospital at Bretton and Norwich and Peterborough Building Society’s head office at Lynch Wood.

Her most recent visit to the city was in 1991, when she attended the East of England show.

In an open letter to the city council’s Chief Executive Officer Matt Gladstone, Mr Bristow said: “I believe such an important and historic occasion should also be marked in a permanent way by our city.

"The Queen has a special place in Peterborough’s history, having been one of the few reigning monarchs to visit the city.

"One of our parkways could be renamed in her honour as the Queen Elizabeth II Parkway.”

Mr Bristow also used the letter to call for the council to increase the street decoration in the city, being left disappointed by the current lack of union jacks and bunting.