Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Town twinning

County Durham has a number of twinning links with towns, cities and regions across the world with thousands of schoolchildren and people living in County Durham visiting one or more of our twinned areas each year.

We also welcome many visitors from overseas to County Durham. International projects like these are helping:

to develop friendships and improve understanding between people in different countries
to develop economic links with our European partners to encourage investment in the County
people improve their skills.

We work mainly with residents and businesses in County Durham and with our partner areas in other countries and offer a European information service to all residents in the North East of England. We are also the main contact for all of the region's schools wanting to get information about the British Council's international education scheme.

For further information on the international relations work we carry out, contact us.

Contact International Relations

Email international@durham.gov.uk
Telephone 03000 268 501

Related information

International partnerships