A GERMAN mayor is trying to revive a 20-year-old twinning link with a west Wiltshire town, which ended after the German visitors were deemed to be taking advantage of the free hospitality.

Melksham was first twinned with the town of Marienhafe, in the district of Aurich in Lower Saxony, 20 years ago, but after about 15 years of operating the association between the two towns cooled.

Gerhard Ihmels, who is mayor of the Brookmerland Municipal Principality, which includes Marienhafe, wrote to Melksham town clerk John Crook in December to discuss the possibility of reviving both the twinning and an exchange programme.

Former town mayor Terri Welch, who was on the twinning association with Marienhafe when it started, said she and others had felt they were being taken advantage of and this was one of the reasons the link came to an end.

She said: “It was really being treated in a different way in Germany to how we were treating it over here and we did feel we were being taken advantage of a bit.”

Cllr Welch said people from all over Germany seemed to be coming along on the exchange trip with locals from Marienhafe and making the most of the free trips, meals and accommodation the Melksham association was providing.

Some of the visitors had nothing to do with Marienhafe and had seemingly come along for a holiday.

Numbers and interest in the Twinning Association also dwindled and this was another reason it stopped running.

Melksham is also twinned with Avon in France.

In his letter to Mr Crook, the German mayor said it remained the wish of the committee to revive a twinning link with them.

He wrote: “The official twinning with your town will celebrate 20 years of existence this summer.

“With this in mind, our twinning group recently met for a social evening.

“Unfortunately the exchange between Melksham and our municipal principality has become almost dormant in the last few years.

“Perhaps you also have an interest in the idea of reinstating regular exchanges?”

Last night Melksham Town Council decided to see if anyone in the town was interested in resurrecting the twinning link and joining the association.