A lot of hard work to secure answer for city (7)
I believe the answer is:
swansea
'city' is the definition.
(Swansea is an example)
'a lot of hard work to secure answer' is the wordplay.
'a lot of' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'hard work' becomes 'set' (set is a kind of hard work).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'secure' becomes 'swan' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'answer' becomes 'a' (abbreviation eg in Q and A).
'set' with its final letter taken off is 'se'.
'se' after 'swan' is 'swanse'.
'swanse'+'a'='SWANSEA'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for swansea that I've seen before include "Welsh city" , "Home of the DVLA" , "Birthplace of Dylan Thomas" , "Second city of Wales" , "Ecstasy, a win! (anag)" .)