CITTASLOW -MOLD town leads the way in Wales

I love MOLD. Its a modest market town just up the road from where we live and a place with which I've enjoyed a happy association since the days when I was involved in various retail enterprises there. 

MOLD has more than just a heart -it has a redoubtable spirit and guts! Never more evident than the way the town  and community have evolved and adapted to changing consumer needs and shopping habits. From the dawn of the twenty-first century the town's civic leaders embraced the fact that the big players in retailing were here to stay -whilst paying more than just lip-service to the continued worth and support of owner-managed businesses. Some would say this spirit of optimism and enterprise is down to the town's great artistic and cultural heritage. Whatever, when I heard that, by taking a bold initiative, MOLD had earned itself the status of a "Cittaslow" town -and that it was the first of what is hoped to be many such in Wales- I decided to find out more.

On a typical crisp but rain-blessed morning in 2010, I dropped by on the good folk who regularly man the CITTASLOW information stall at the town's bustling street-market.