County Hall Durham
As part of training for new staff members from Japan, JLGC visited Durham County Council and Durham University in October 2023.
Durham County Council kindly welcomed the group in their historic city hall. Everyone was pleased to learn more about the work of the council, Durham’s demographics and its role in the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority.
The visit explored many of Durham’s assets, such as manufacturing, visitor economy, education and health and life sciences. The group were particularly interested in the ‘Visit County Durham’ campaign, which encourages visitors to stay in Durham instead of visiting as a day trip. Durham’s Tourism Management Plan is a great example of how local authorities can consult and work with local businesses to increase tourism.
The group was also interested to hear about the growing opportunities in Durham, particularly in the fields of advanced manufacturing and semiconductors. The council-owned Business Durham is an impressive business support service, and it was great to see how they work with entrepreneurs to start successful businesses and encourage inward investment into the county.
Durham County Council also explained their humanitarian support programmes, describing their resettlement schemes, support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and support for Ukrainians schemes. JLGC staff were impressed by the range of support on offer to these groups and it was great to hear case studies of asylum-seekers who have found a home in County Durham.
After the council, the group then visited Durham University. The welcoming staff at Durham University explained how Japan is an important strategic partner for them. The university has around 15 partnerships with Japanese organisations, which is more than any other country. Not only were the group impressed by Durham’s academic reputation, world heritage site and excellent sustainability, but they were also interested to hear about the university’s development and engagement. It was great to hear about the diverse programmes the university is involved in and about their work with towns, businesses and policymakers.
The group then visited the university’s Oriental Museum and had a look at its extensive Japan collection. Everyone was fascinated to see objects from both past and present Japanese culture, such as traditional kimono and editions of popular manga. The museum has many educational projects, and the group even saw museum staff live-streaming and explaining some of the exhibitions to a local school.
Everyone was also kindly welcomed by the principal and students from Teikyo University of Japan in Durham. It was lovely to hear about the students’ experiences in the UK and how they have adapted to life in Durham.
On the second day, the group visited Bishop Auckland, the second-largest town in County Durham, to learn about tourism and the Auckland Project. The Auckland Project aims to tackle the town’s challenges of low employment and educational and career support for young people. The group heard about the redevelopment projects in collaboration with various groups and organisations to improve infrastructure in city centres. One of the participants commented that they could see similarities between their home organisation and Bishop Auckland and Durham County Council. They hope to learn from the cooperation between Bishop Auckland and County Durham, as their city officials and municipality officials are not closely involved.
Thank you to everyone in Durham for the warm welcome and interesting programme.
Top Photo: By peter robinson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82349255
