Journeys of Understanding: Domestic twinning as an approach to improving town capacity and wellbeing

This report concludes a unique, 18-month twinning experiment highlighting that the opportunities to learn and share ideas between Britain’s towns. Twin Towns UK sought to boost the development of selected towns, not through major grant investment or specific output focused funding streams, but through supporting a process of learning and collaboration. The Carnegie UK Trust’s Twin Towns project paired six towns; Broughshane & Wooler,  North Shields & Merthyr Tydfil and Whitburn & Ostwaldtwistle with the goal of encouraging towns to think differently about what they could do to improve their local communities by learning from others in similar situations. The Trust used a ‘plus funding’ model of support, evaluation, study trips and events combined with small scale funding to support self-directed activities.