UPTON has been invited to consider twinning with a town on the River Seine as a spin-off from Worcester's successful link with Le Vesinet, south-west Paris.

It could give young people from Upton the opportunity of corresponding with French youngsters, making exchange visits to France and even working there during the summer.

Robert Loveless, of the Worcester Twinning Association, noticed that young people from the neighbouring suburb of Chatou were often among exchange groups from Le Vesinet. This prompted him to write to Upton Town Council suggesting a twinning.

The Worcester-Le Vesinet twinning dates from 1994 but Mr Loveless has been organising educational exchanges for 21 years.

"We have some young people coming to Worcester to work in restaurants during July and this year one of them is from Chatou," he said.

"We have about 80 young people who write to each other and quite a number of them live in Chatou, so it occurred to me that maybe Upton would like to link with them.

"Chatou is about the same size as Upton. It has a famous restaurant on the side of the Seine where the impressionist artists used to meet and talk."

Mr Loveless said he would be prepared to come and talk to any group in Upton interested in taking up the idea.

"You don't have to make too much of a song and dance about it. The important thing is to get on with it," he said.

"One of the advantages of Chatou is its accessibility. You can fly from Birmingham for as little as £114 and then it takes about an hour on the Metro."

Town mayor Ernie Holder said the twinning idea had been "hashed over" before and had not got very far.

"If there's a group in Upton who feel enthusiastic about this, let's encourage them, but to try and impose it from outside is very difficult," said Coun Simon Wilkinson.

"We couldn't even think of committing the public purse," said the mayor.