Visitors from Oxford’s twin towns believe lessons can be learned from the city’s experience of last July’s devastating floods.

About 30 representatives from the city’s twin towns, Leiden in Holland, Bonn in Germany, Grenoble in France, and Perm in Russia, arrived in Oxford last week for the flooding conference organised by the city council.

The council applied to the European Union for funding to host the conference and was given the go-ahead with a grant of £19,000. May Wylie, the council’s twinning officer, said: “Some people are not fans of twinning, but there has been some very good sharing of good practice when it comes to tackling flooding.”

On Saturday, Colin Cook, Labour city councillor for Jericho and Osney, showed delegates areas hit by flooding last July, including Bullstake Close, Earl Street and Duke Street off Botley Road, and South Street on Osney Island.

Environment Agency staff were also present to give delegates detailed information about flood-prevention work which has been completed since last July.

This includes the installation of £150,000 steel flood barriers which are stored at the agency’s depot in Osney Mead.

Mr Cook said: “When we spoke to the delegates, we soon discovered that we all experience problems with flooding and hopefully we can all benefit by sharing information about how each city tackles them.

“Bonn has trouble with the Rhine, Leiden is in Holland where 60 per cent of the land is below sea level, and in Perm they have two enormous dams to deal with the water when the snow melts in the spring.

“The council will produce a report after this conference and it will be passed on to delegates from our twin towns.”

Tim Sadler, the council’s director of city services, said: “Our colleagues in Perm have told us that they can bring big solutions quickly because they don’t have such a multi-agency approach, but we have a complex, historic city to deal with and the flooding is right in the heart of the city.”

Helmut Kollig, the Mayor of Bonn, said: “If you only look at your own system you could be blind to new possibilities, which is why I think this has been such a useful visit.

“And perhaps we will be able to find new solutions to our problems after hearing how Oxford tackles its own flooding problems.”

Eugeniya Krutikova, from the Perm delegation, added: “There are not such great risks of flooding in Perm, but we are glad to share our experience.”

Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, had been due to attend the conference but had to pull out.

However, Geoff Bell, project manager for the agency’s west division, which includes Oxford, said the clear message from twin town delegates was for all agencies to work closely together to tackle flooding.

He added: “We work very closely with residents themselves because we can learn from their experiences and get better results.”

Richard Thurston, chairman of Osney Island Residents’ Association, and a member of the Oxford Flood Alliance, said it was brilliant that the EU had provided the funding to enable the conference to take place.