Doors open at £200m West Bromwich New Square centre

People queued to get inside shops at the long-awaited retail and leisure complex which has transformed the face of the town centre.

Thousands of people were expected to descend on the site, which is expected to create 1,200 new jobs, on its opening day.

This morning hundreds of people were at the site with eager customers queuing to get into Tesco Extra and Next.

Tesco Extra was the first store to open its doors at 8am, followed by retailers Bank, JD Sports, Outfit, Deichmann and Phones4U.

A £3 million five-screen Odeon cinema will open tomorrow.

Meanwhile, restaurants Nandos, Prezzo and Harvester, were also opening today.

The blue-coloured two-storey Primark store, which co-anchors the development along with Tesco is due to open in September. The store will dominate the West Bromwich skyline and the company has already begun the fit-out of its new 50,000 sq ft store well in advance of its grand opening in the autumn.

The first shopper to experience New Square was John Imm from West Bromwich who cut the ribbon at Tesco.

Mr Imm, from Kiniths Crescent, who was celebrating his 88th birthday today was nominated by his family to open the store.

He used to attend Cronehills Secondary Modern, which used to occupy the site of the development, until he was 14.

Mr Imm said: "Today has been mind-boggling. Someone put me in for it and I thought they were winding me up. When I cut the ribbon I was going to make a little speech but I didn't have a chance because so many people wanted to come in. It's a marvellous store. And you can't want for anything in a shop like this."

Peter Ward who lives opposite the shopping centre, "It's improved the whole area fantastically, because it was all very run down.

"We only live across the way so we've now got a much better outlook. We had been very nervous about how it was going to turn out, but we are very pleasantly surprised. It's a relief because everything around us is being flattened, and we're surprised at how nicely it has been done. They've landscaped it very nicely too. This has upgraded the town I think."

Sandwell Council leader Councillor Darren Cooper said today: "It's been a very, very long time coming, it has taken a decade to pull all this together, but now with this, and the new swimming pool and everything else, West Bromwich is going to change.

"We are also investing £8 million in Kings and Queens Square to give that a facelift and hopefully West Bromwich will become a premier town."

Kindi Khalsa, aged 44, who travelled from Harrington Coft in Stone Cross with five month old daughter Ekom Satmaan, she said: "I've just done a school run for my oldest, so I thought I would queue up to soak up the atmosphere whilst I was waiting and to see the new stores. We own a chip shop nearby, so I've been watching the development from A to Z, and I wanted to the see the finished products."

The major retail hub was first mooted as a possibility in 2009, and is just one of a number of regeneration projects that have taken place or are currently under way in the town.

Businesses have clamoured to sign up to the scheme including top retail and restaurant chains.

Poundworld and Greggs are among the latest tenants, while visitors will also be able to enjoy food outlets including Chinese buffet restaurant Real China and Costa.

A balloon release was being performed by West Bromwich Albion legend Cyrille Regis this afternoon.