BATHURST Regional Council plans to send a delegation to Cirencester early next year to formally endorse a friendship agreement with the Cotswolds market town.
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Councillors voted in March to pursue the friendship agreement and council has since been informed that the Cirencester Town Council has agreed to the plan.
A report to councillors by corporate services and finance director Aaron Jones suggests the delegation fly to England in March or April next year, led by the mayor and general manager.
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"Additional councillors and council staff may wish to join the delegation, with funding options needing to be determined," the report states.
"It is intended that the signing of the friendship agreement will occur during this delegation."
The trip is expected to cost around $4000 a head, to be funded from council's sister city allocation.
Plans for the friendship agreement started during Bathurst's bicentennial year of 2015 following a visit to the city by the ninth Earl and Countess Bathurst, who call Cirencester home.
Since then there have been a number of delegate exchanges between the two centres, including when 18-year-old Alice Chandler came to Bathurst last October on a trip funded by the Cirencester Community Development Trust in collaboration with Cirencester Town Council.
Cirencester is a town in the Gloucestershire region of England. It is in the Cotswolds, not far from Bath.
The passing of the Local Government Act in England in 1894 brought into existence Cirencester's first independent elected body, the Urban District Council.
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The reorganisation of the local government system in 1974 replaced this council with a two-tier system of Cotswold District Council and Cirencester Town Council.
Under the patronage of the Bathurst family, the Cirencester area - and most notably Sapperton - became a major centre for the Arts and Crafts movement in the Cotswolds.
Bathurst's initial friendship agreement with Cirencester will be for a period of three years.