A spat between property developers in Shanghai, and a British pub and chip shop owner could end up bringing two very different towns closer together.

Gail Caddy, owner of the UK businesses in the ancient seaside town of Lyme Regis in southwest England, was amazed when she saw pictures of Thames Town, in Shanghai's Songjiang District, in the British press.

Replete with Georgian-style town houses and red brick terraces, Caddy noticed the project includes two buildings almost identical to her 256-year-old pub and neighbouring fish bar, even down to having the same names on the front.

Now Caddy, 53, has suggested twinning the buildings in Thames Town with her original Rock Point Inn and Cobb Gate Fish Bar.

"It looks like the whole facade has been copied with the exception of a front window missing," Caddy, who initially drew Shanghai residents' attention to her plight through the www.shanghaiist.com web site.

"I have two unique properties here there is nowhere else in the world where you have a pub and a fish 'n' chip shop side-by-side at a river mouth - and I was amazed to see they had been copied, even having a similar location, without anyone asking if I minded."

As, unsurprisingly, she does not have the original architectural plans for the centuries old buildings, Caddy has been told she cannot claim intellectual property rights (IPR) to their design.

Neither can she claim copyright over the names, Thames Town developers say, because she did not register them in China,

"We hired a British agency, Atkins, to design the whole project, and many of the buildings were copied from those in England. Atkins even produced a brochure to show how similar the buildings here are to some in England," said Wang Haijun, spokeswoman for Shanghai Henghe Real Estate Co Ltd, one of the companies behind the project.

Architect Paul Rice, who works for Atkins in Shanghai, said that, apart from the names, which his company had nothing to do with, there had been no deliberate copying.

"We tried to follow the same rules as architects 200 years ago to create something really authentic. The result may look very similar to actual buildings in England, but it's not a copy of anywhere in particular."

Caddy now wants to seize on the situation as an opportunity for residents and visitors to Lyme Regis and Thames Town to get to know more about each other.

"Towns are 'twinned' with other towns in different countries and I have asked for a plaque to be put on the front of the buildings in Shanghai saying, 'Twinned with the Rock Point Inn and Cobb Gate Fish Bar, Lyme Regis, Dorset,'" Caddy said.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I am very flattered that this has happened. I would just have appreciated more contact and explanation from the developers."

And the Dorset landlord is even planning on making the trip to Shanghai to see "her" buildings when Thames Town officially opens in October.

"With all that's happened it would be nice if the developers offered to bring me over for it, but even if they don't I'm willing to pay myself I just really want to see how my pub and chip shop look in Shanghai."

(China Daily September 14, 2006)