Pursuit of the slow life

19 April 2007

It is becoming fashionable to be slow - to savour a meal cooked from scratch, to linger by a pleasant spot. Sarah Brealey reports on how Diss in one of two Norfolk towns leading the way…

It is an international movement that grew out of opposition to McDonald's and has good, local food at its heart.

Now Norfolk is leading the way in Cittaslow. Its two member towns, Diss and Aylsham, make up two-thirds of the whole country's membership - Ludlow being the other one in England, though there are now new members in the shape of Perth in Scotland and Mold in Wales.

Cittaslow is the Italian for slow town, and far from being the insult it might sound is a celebration of a better way of life including farmers' markets, clean rivers, open spaces, local produce and community involvement, to name but a few. It grew out of the Slow Food movement, an international association that promotes food and wine culture and diversity of food and agriculture. Slow Food was set up in 1986 by Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, who was horrified when McDonald's opened a branch by the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Cittaslow was set up in October 1999, and now has more than 100 member towns across the world - mostly in Italy, but also in Germany, Norway, Spain and Australia as well as the UK. It still has much in common with that original protest against McDonald's: standing up for local shops against chain stores, slow, local food rather than fast food, promoting local distinctiveness rather than identikit town centres. It is also about small rather than large - only towns with a population of under 50,000 can be members, though larger places can apply to be supporters.

Although Cittaslow has stretched far beyond its Slow Food roots, food is still an important part. In order to join the scheme, towns must have a “slow food convivium” which organises events such as tastings and dinners.

In Diss, there are efforts to support local producers and to set up a directory of them. The farmers' market has been given a new lease of life, and is now promoted and advertised, leading to increased custom.

Tony Palmer, chairman of the Cittaslow committee, district councillor and former mayor, says: “I think Diss is a wonderful part of the world. It retains that character that seems to be fast disappearing in the country. It is seen to be worth preserving.”

Diss joined Cittaslow in March last year, with the intention of making the town a “place where people want to be”.

Mr Palmer says: “The problem with Britain is we are becoming a nation of clone towns and we don't want to see that happen in Diss.”

He believes Cittaslow has been a catalyst for change in the town. Some of the projects are still in the pipeline, but the scheme is already making a difference. The town's community partnership gained £106,000 of European Leader+ funding to run Cittaslow projects, including a website, appointing a co-ordinator and a finance and administration officer, promoting Diss as a Cittaslow town, and helping to preserve the town's historic clay lump buildings. The cleverly-named website Dissconnected.net is still growing, but provides news about community groups and events and is a way of local groups getting in touch with each other.

Much of Cittaslow is not glamorous, and to the uninitiated it is simply a funny name. But it seems rather appropriate that its benefits are not always immediately obvious.

As Mr Palmer says: “It is something you have got to get immersed in and then it is like being on the road to Damascus - yes, this is the way we can preserve the character of our market towns.

“There is no doubt about it, this is a fantastic way of doing it.”