Mostyn Street is Llandudno’s commercial spine, and like many spines it occasionally complains. It runs behind the promenade and carries much of the town’s shopping, cafe life and everyday visitor traffic.

Named, as one might expect, for the Mostyn family whose estate shaped the town, it has been the principal commercial street since the Victorian resort took hold. The name is both a reminder and a monument, though the street itself has no time for monumental self-regard when there are shops to maintain and pavements to fill.

It is still healthier than many seaside high streets, which is not quite the same as saying it is untroubled. There are empty units, familiar chains, charity shops and shopfronts that require either investment or a firm talking-to.

The Victorian and Edwardian building stock along the street still provides an attractive upper-storey skyline that the window displays below do not always earn. Look up now and then. It is astonishing how often visitors judge a street by window displays while ignoring the architecture quietly doing all the hard work above them.

There are also useful independents: outdoor clothing shops serving the walking and climbing community, local bookshops, jewellers, gift shops with a point of view and the practical necessities of a town centre used by residents as well as visitors.

The buildings still help. Some of the Mostyn Street facades have original Victorian details worth examining at a pace that allows them to register.

Mostyn Street matters because locals use it as well as visitors. A town centre used only by tourists becomes a stage set with card machines. The presence of banks, a post office, a chemist, a hardware shop and ordinary errands alongside the visitor economy is a sign of health, not mediocrity.

The pedestrianised sections manage the visitor and local traffic reasonably well, though the edges of the pedestrianised area can feel transitional in the way of places where the planning happened in stages and the stages did not fully agree with each other.

Accept the mixture: elegance, gaps, errands, coffee, shopping and the occasional window one passes without comment. Mostyn Street is not flawless. It is alive, which is more useful.

For the visitor, Mostyn Street is the practical centre of the town: where one buys the forgotten item, finds coffee between the pier and the Orme, and occasionally discovers a shop that was worth the detour. This is not glamour, but it is function, and function deserves recognition.