The benefits of Bathurst's Friendship Agreement with Cirencester

The idea to form a sister city relationship with Cirencester came about in 2015 as Bathurst was celebrating its bicentenary year.

Cirencester is a community in the Gloucestershire region of England, situated in the Cotswolds, not far from Bath.

It is the seat of the Earls Bathurst, where Australia's first inland settlement drew its name from.

Bathurst was named after the third Earl Bathurst and the current Earl, Allen Christopher Bertram Bathurst, is the 9th person to hold this title.

During Bathurst's 2015 celebrations, discussions were held with the Earl and Countess Bathurst about exploring the opportunity for developing a sister city relationship with Cirencester and, years later, a Friendship Agreement was signed.

Councillor Jess Jennings said it was not an easy road to get to this point, but it has been worth it.

"This was first slated in around about 2015, I think, when the bicentennial of the planting of Bathurst's flagstaff occurred and the impetus was created then, but it was by no means an easy road to get to a point where we both signed," he said.

"I know when I went in 2015, the first time, at the end of that year there was a pretty critical misunderstanding that was able to be ironed out by face-to-face contact and then of course there was a delegation ready to go to the UK, to Cirencester, in March 2020 and that was to formally sign this in May."

The delegation never made it to Cirencester, with the COVID-19 pandemic putting an immediate stop to that trip.

But, despite the challenges since early 2020, the relationship managed to survive and strengthen.

"Like many things, the impact of COVID, it often has killed things stone dead. In this case, this relationship managed to sustain that impact," Cr Jennings said.

There have been many benefits, existing and future, to come from that perseverance from the city of Bathurst and town of Cirencester to develop a formal friendship.

WHILE still in the early days, the Friendship Agreement has created an avenue for Bathurst businesses to sell their products overseas.

That same opportunity is afforded to Cirencester businesses, with a small selection of products already available in the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre.

General manager David Sherley said Bathurst Regional Council is looking to build on that.

"We hope we'll see more development," he said.

"In the tour trip [in 2022] that myself and Cr Jennings went to and we met up there, certainly we had some Bathurst product that we were able to promote, in particular, wines.

"Over here, probably to more of a degree than in Cirencester, there are little shops in both the business centres to promote the product from each side, create diversity."

BOTH Bathurst and Cirencester have seen visitors from abroad making travel plans inspired by the Friendship Agreement.

"We've seen with the development of the sister city process over the last five or six years, there has been tourism movement between the two locations," Mr Sherley said.

"Certainly, we're seeing people come here from Cirencester and vice versa in the last year or two there have been a fair few people visiting Cirencester."

IT'S not just Bathurst and Cirencester that are connected. Their universities are, too.

The Friendship Agreement led to the development of a memorandum of understanding between Charles Sturt University and Hartpury University, which was signed in late 2020.

Hartpury University in Gloucestershire has close links with Bathurst council, and a similar ethos and profile to CSU, including significant interest in supporting regional economic development and sustainability.

The MoU includes, but is not limited to, cooperation concerning:

IN 2018, a student from Cirencester, Alice Chandler, was sponsored to visit Bathurst for an educational experience.

She got to explore the region, attend the Bathurst 1000 and meet with many different people over the course of three weeks.

Bathurst has a sister city arrangement with Ohkuma and, through that, two school students get to visit the Japanese town each year with the financial assistance of Bathurst council.

Mr Sherley said something similar could be introduced as part of the Cirencester Friendship Agreement and at a reasonably small cost to council.

MR Sherley has also pointed to the possibility of museums in Bathurst and Cirencester sharing their collections in the future.

While nothing is official, he did say that there have been "interactions" in the museum space.

"They have a significant museum in the Corinium Museum over there. A lot of Roman artifacts and, in fact, some of the artifacts are as good as any Roman artifacts in the whole of Europe," Mr Sherley said.

"We're linking in with our museums unit to see what opportunities there are for exchange."

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