Dartmouth has been invited to take part in a very special birthday celebration some 5,000 miles away – in Dartmouth.

The invitation has come from Dartmouth in Massachusetts on the other side of the Atlantic where the town of 34,000 will next year be celebrating the 350th anniversary of its foundation.

Over the years the two Dartmouths have maintained fairly loose links, although a party from the US town visited here just over a decade ago and a local contingent of around a dozen people – including the then mayor Richard Rendle – visited the US town in 2001.

The latest invitation was announced at this week's town council meeting and was handed to the town's general purposes committee to consider when it meets on January 24.