Sense of Place Study

Mold Town Council, Cittaslow Mold, Flintshire County Council and Cadwyn Clwyd are working in partnership to prepare a ‘Vision’ for Mold, which is being part-funded by the EU Rural Development Plan for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government.

A project to create a recipe for a prosperous future for Mold was launched at the town’s Food and Drink Festival in September 2009. The first step was to persuade local residents to put Mold under the microscope by identifying what’s best about the Town, the first in Wales to sign up to Cittaslow, an international network of small towns committed to improving the quality of their environment.

These proposals were presented and consulted upon later that year, before being considered by the partners to guide future work and investment over the next 10 years.

The man in charge of the Study is Nathan Blanchard, Director of Heritage Initiatives, who masterminded the award-winning Townscape Heritage Initiative to regenerate historic properties in Denbigh. His team includes experts on town centre regeneration, urban design and development. This project goes much further said Nathan: “It aims to ensure the future success of the town and for that we need to enlist the support of the townspeople.  Mold has a great deal going for it and some major focal points such as its historic Bailey Hill, its culture in the shape of author Daniel Owen and its thriving markets.  They all make it a busy and successful town that has managed to buck the recession so there is still a vibrancy and vitality about Mold".

Nathan continued: "Mold is well served by local roads and it has a broad retail offer with a good mix of small independent shops. That means it is neither a ghost town of empty and boarded up shops nor another ‘clone’ town with the usual line-up of national retailers on its High Street – it has something unique to offer. What we need to do is to get local people to recognise what they’ve got and get involved in ways to ensure its successful future.”

Keira Derbyshire, Flintshire Sense of Place Project Officer, said: “We do want to be aspirational but we want to get value for money too by finding small changes that can be made that have a big impact. We asked local people to get involved by identifying what makes Mold special and people responded to tell us what they think about their town.”

 “We’re looking for a vision,” Nathan Blanchard added: “We asked people to consider where they want Mold to be in ten years time and what we need to do to make that happen. We want to maintain and encourage the things that are best about Mold, its vibrant local businesses, its friendliness, its fine buildings and public spaces, its culture and history. Sense of Place is very innovative because it looks at such a broad range of issues and aims to help and support local businesses”.

The Study will complement the Town Action Plan initiative being promoted by Flintshire County Council which seeks to revitalise all seven market towns in the County.
Anyone interested in Cadwyn Clwyd’s Mold Sense of Place Project can contact Keira Derbyshire on 01824 705802 or email her by clicking here. 

You can download the Sense of Place Feasibility Study by clicking here (please note that this is a large file 30MB).