FROME Town Council has said that it will not be able to host twin towns Château- Gontier in France, Murrhardt in Germany and Rabka-Zdròj in Poland next year, due to the cost of living crisis and the ‘unstable’ financial position in Somerset Council.
Every year one of the twin towns takes it in turns to host the annual quadripartite event, where the other towns send 30 participants for a four-day period, with a full programme of events showcasing what the town has to offer.
Next year is Frome’s turn to host the participants however, at the full council meeting on Wednesday 13th March, cllr Anita Collier informed the chamber that the twin towns had been advised that ‘reluctantly’ they are not in a position to take their turn next year.
“This is not only due to the high cost of living, but there is a very high cost to hosting all those families,” explained cllr Collier. “It requires substantial staff resources to organise the events involved and as well as that, we would be seeking host families to put up 90 people around the town for the four-day period.
“The response from all three has been very understanding and very sympathetic, but displaying a strong desire for us to remain a connection because we have been going for so long together. I just wanted to reassure everyone that we will continue to work in, whatever capacity, with our twin towns but we may need to look for new opportunities, new ways of working to interact in a way that suits Frome’s current circumstances.”
Frome’s mayor, cllr Philip Campagna, also said that since November, he has been working on creating a football tournament in Murrhardt and that Frome Town Youth would hopefully be attending with their under 15s, taking a boys’ and a girls’ team.
“[We are also possibly setting up] a teams meeting with Frome teachers to set up some kind of contact, not necessarily an exchange, but to have contact across subject areas to try and foster and keep those links going.”
