Old & New

Spent some time mooching around the New Square redevelopment before heading to the high street today. The regeneration of town is a contentious topic; I've spoken to some (reasonably affluent) people in the area who believe that the opening of a new public space with all sorts of identikit retail stores and eateries is just what West Bromwich needs to modernise it and turn the tide of decline, but there are others who feel that the last thing the place needs is to lose whatever character it has left to the tsunami of corporate mediocrity. As if to emphasise this point, while I was photographing the spacious square and some of the young professionals enjoying £9.99 al fresco pub meals on their lunch break, an elderly Jamaican woman passing through with her shopping wandered over and opined: "So... dis dat MONSTROSITY evrybody tarkin abote!"

Here's the old market basking in the sunshine, with the bargain-hunters out in force. I have to admit, from a photographic point of view alone, it IS more interesting than New Square.