The mayors of Pendle’s two twin towns made a special visit to the borough to mark two significant milestones.

The mayor of Creil, Jean-Claude Villemain, and the mayor of Marl, Werner Arndt, spent a couple of days in the borough to celebrate two twinning anniversaries with mayor of Pendle, Councillor Mohammad Aslam.

2024 is Pendle’s 50th year as a borough council and the 50th anniversary of twinning between Pendle and Creil in France.

Next year will be Pendle’s 30th twinning anniversary with the German town of Marl, so this visit was an early way of marking that at the same time.

The purpose of the visit was to mark the noteworthy milestones and advance joint working projects between the towns.

During their stay, the mayors enjoyed a tour of the borough and took part in a working meeting at Nelson Town Hall.

With much of their joint twinning work focussing on young people, they also visited the Pendle YES Hub to find out about the work done there for people in the borough.

They also visited Pendle Community High School and College in Nelson, where the mayors were each presented with a wooden plaque to commemorate the anniversaries by design and technology students who had made the mementoes.

Cllr Aslam said: “It was lovely to welcome the two mayors to Pendle to acknowledge and celebrate our twinning milestones.

“The visit was also an opportunity to develop our joint working projects, and after visiting Pendle Community High School and College and Pendle YES Hub, the towns of Creil and Marl are keen to make links between the two, plus similar organisations in their towns.

“The mayors were also very interested in learning about some of Pendle’s initiatives, such as our successful Bit It, Don’t Dump It! campaign, Climate Fresk, and Beat the Street.

“The visit was a great opportunity to mark our twinning links which I hope will continue for years to come.”