Takahide Yamakawa and Akiko Miyazawa are shown a model of the Angel of the North by Mayor of Gateshead Cllr Maureen Chaplin.
Two Japanese officials are making a week-long visit to Gateshead Council to find out how the top performing local authority’s experience can be transferred to their homeland.
Two of the areas that the visiting officials will be looking closely at are building strong relationships with local communities and encouraging greater use of public transport. The visit is part of a research programme run by the Japan Local Government Centre to help share experiences between Britain and Japan.
Mr Takahide Yamakawa from the Aichi Prefecture in central Japan and Ms Akiko Miyazawa from Tokyo Metropolitan Government will both be getting to know how Gateshead differs from their areas. Aichi has over seven million residents whilst Tokyo is home to nearly 13 million people in comparison to Gateshead’s 200,000.
Mr Yamakawa is interested in seeing how the people of Gateshead are being encouraged to swap the car for public transport. Ms Miyazawa on the other hand is hoping to learn more about how Gateshead Council works with community groups in the borough through initiatives such as the newly launched neighbourhood agreements and community cohesion strategy.
Gateshead Council cabinet member for safer stronger communities and culture Cllr David Napier said: “This is not the first time we have hosted visitors from authorities in Japan and I’m sure that it will be yet another enlightening and immensely useful experience both for ourselves and Mr Yamakawa and Ms Miyazawa.
“We are always eager to look at what we can learn from working closely with similar organisations both in this country and throughout the world.
During their visit the pair, who arrived in Gateshead today, will also have the opportunity to visit world famous Gateshead sites including the Angel of the North, The Sage Gateshead and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.