Did you see Congleton's success celebrated in the Financial Times?

Congleton Bearmania puts market town on the map

19th September, the Financial Times ran a feature on Congleton Beartown, with a worldwide readership of 2,5 million.  It's fourty years since we were last featured in the FT!

View the article on the FT website

Comparing Congleton to New York, London and Tokyo, the FT reporter describes our wonderfully sucessfull Bear Mania and told the world how we have tripled visitor numbers since the launch, with a 600 per cent increase in people entering our museum.

The article described how the whole thing began with Dawn Gibbins funding an 'atmospheric survey' of the town, conducted by Simon Brown. At that time, the town was described as 'run down'.

Peter Aston, chairman of the Congleton Sustainability Group, one of the town’s 120 voluntary groups, said of Bear Mania : “It is turning a negative into a positive.”

The article went on to explain how the organising group were able to drive down costs ( and increase the revenue for charity), when Paul Bates MD of Jigsaw RTM, a retail distributor, agreed to run Congleton Beartown, a social enterprise. With his knowledge of products, he drove the cost of a bear down to £250 ($390), including paint, rather than the thousands the Cow Parade animals cost.

Joe Kanauros, whose family runs Illucini’s café, says "It has given the whole town a lift. I don’t want them to go.”

Future plans  - a mass exhibition, a children’s book, and Beartown spring water after the trail finishes in October- were described, as was the Congleton Apple Juice project.

View the article on the FT website