Clacton / Valence: investing in sister city twinning relationships

12:00 Mon, 03 Aug 2026

While the incumbent member for Clacton-on-Sea has been cultivating relationships with cryptocurrency bosses, what happened to Clacton's pre-existing sister-city relationship with Valence in France?

The web site of the Tendring (District) Twinning Association tell us:

Until further notice the Tendring Twinning Association is not active and I am afraid there is no-one to reply to your contact messages. We hope you can make contact with Twinners in other towns and countries and keep up the good work. These pages are here for information only.

Using the search facility on the Tendring District Council web site gives us no results at all:

A legacy version of the Tendring District Council web site refers us back to the defunct Tendring Twinning Association.

The Tendring District has three twinning links with towns in Europe. The District is twinned with Valence in France, Biberach in Germany and Swidnica in Poland.

The twinning link with Valence goes back to 1969 when Valence originally twinned with the former Clacton Urban District Council. However, a new Charter was signed in 1990 to expand the link to the Tendring District. At the same time, the District signed a twinning charter with Biberach in Germany, a town that was also twinned with Valence.

Back in 2020, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed an Australian, Tony Abbott, to be a UK trade advisor. Could other Australians perform a useful role, for example, helping to rebuild the sister city relationship that Nige neglected?

The incumbent MP spent many years representing the UK in Brussels and Strasbourg. How come he has done nothing to preserve the sister city relationship for his own district of Clacton-on-Sea?

In French, the word for city is a feminine word and this gives us the notion of the cities being sisters.

After my visit to Valence in July 2026, I can't help wondering if I'd done more for the sister city relationship in one night than the incumbent MP has done in two years on the public payroll.

Policy ideas for investing in the sister city relationship

It would be fascinating to establish a weekly coach service linking each of the sister cities.

As it turns out, the cities profit from some significant differences in language and climate. For example, with Valence being an inland city, the residents always have to take a journey of at least three hours to visit a beach. Why not go just a little bit further and visit Clacton-sur-Mer? In contrast, the Drome region offers mountains and wineries.

There are certain sports like rugby and horse riding that have a very strong following in both Essex and the Drome region. Even in the absence of the volunteer-run Tendring Twinning Association, the local sporting associations may be able to maintain relationships with their peers and occasional friendly matches or training camps.

There are two Commonwealth War Graves in Valence.

These are all areas where a motivated locally-minded MP would go the extra mile (or kilometer) to support local groups taking control of the sister-city relationship.

As noted in my first blog post about the mission to Valence, nobody there ever heard of the MP for Clacton.

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