(Image: LDRS)

I visited revamped town centre and I can see why some love it and others hate it

Wednesbury town centre has had millions of pounds spent on it in recent years but it was mixed fortunes for traders

05 Feb 2024, 05:30 by Christian Barnett, https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/authors/christian-barnett/ · Birmingham Live

It was a tale of two traders on a chilly and quiet Friday afternoon when I found myself in Wednesbury to see how the town centre was faring.

The town centre has been revamped with millions of pounds in recent years with Wednesbury’s market has been relocated and I wanted to know how the move had gone.

Adrian Bowen, who was born and bred in Wednesbury, said it was his first day selling jacket potatoes from the prime spot in Union Street that he had been waiting months for. “We’ve done brilliantly actually,” he said from his Tayta Box van. “It’s taken me a bit off guard because I’m nearly sold out. I can’t cook them quick enough.”

Mr Bowen, who was one year into the jacket potato business, was more than happy to talk about the current state of the town centre. “It’s up and coming I think. It’s had a bit of money and it needs a bit more. It just needs some more investment in the shops.”

“The people are really loyal to the town. You’ve got the people from Wednesbury who go to Wednesbury and that’s it. They are very loyal.”

But the mood was not as positive just a hundred yards away at the newly refurbished - but almost empty - market stalls underneath the town’s historic, and recently restored, clock tower. Pete Edmonds, who said he had been selling in Wednesbury for 37 years which made him the town’s longest-standing market trader, was halfway packing up his stall when he admitted that walking away from the town was becoming a likelier prospect.

“The new market looks nice and everything but half the traders have gone,” he said holding his hands in the air. “They’ve done a good job with it and it looks all pretty.

“It looks really good,” he said. “But it’s not very practical.”

Mr Edmonds said he had been struggling to attach anything to the new market stalls to prevent his wares from blowing away in the windy weather. And you could really sense his frustration. “It’s just one o’clock now and we’re already packing up because there's nobody about, it's dead. I’ve been doing this for 37 years and I’m getting to the point next year where I’m going to have to seriously consider packing it all in.

“I’ll be going to Bridgnorth tomorrow and I’ll be there until five and here I’m packing up at one because there’s no point.”

Many traders were against the council moving the town’s market and their predictions look to have become the reality with the majority of stallholders similarly shutting up shop for the day. It was a sense of frustration that I felt the most from others when I was in Wednesbury, that things have been going in the right direction but that something ends up getting in the way.

“I only wanted to go to the bank,” one frustrated man told me as he tried to pay for a parking space only to find the council had removed the paying machine for a sign with a number to call. “Not great if you don’t have a phone is it?” he said.

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