2018 is a very important year for St Helens, marking 150 years since our borough was created.

But it is also 70 years since St Helens’ twinning with Stuttgart in Germany, a historic partnership that I raised at the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe.

St Helens is an innovative borough that powered the industrial revolution with coal, glass chemicals and rail.

Our twinning with Stuttgart came about after the horrors of the Second World War. In 1948, the Mayor of St Helens, Alderman Walter Marshall was the first British civic leader to visit the city after hearing a presentation from a Stuttgart resident about the challenges there.

Mayor Marshall, in a very radical, visionary and generous act, held out the hand of friendship – and the people of St Helens and Stuttgart have been linked ever since.