Local authorities with a post-Brexit Brussels base have re-committed to the idea despite Cornwall Council starting the process of closing down its European office.

Bristol and Birmingham city councils, City of London Corporation, and Hampshire CC are all understood to have no plans to shut their Brussels bases despite the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

Kent CC said it kept its use of rented space in the Brussels office of one of the French regions under review to ensure it was ‘value for money for our work attracting inward investment into Kent, having regard to the significant sums of money that we obtain from collaborative projects’.