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New Street City Centre Birmingham

What wonderful footage, Geoff ! Thanks for posting.

It's also terribly poignant in that so many of those lads (and some older men) would have lost their lives in WW1, 12 years later.

The movement of the buses along New Street at the end, I'm sure will be of interest to our bus enthusiasts too. Presumably they'd be turning off onto Corporation Street ? Or would they have continued along New Street towards the Town Hall.
 
I worked in a shop in New St in the 1970s and I walked along the top end yesterday (from the ramp to Victoria Square) and was
surprised by how it's changed over the years. What was once a prestigious shopping street, with an excellent mix of shops, has turned into a mess being populated predominantly with food outlets (coffee, pizza, wraps, burgers, noodles, fried chicken etc). No longer a destination for shoppers or even for food lovers as all of the offers seemed to be predominantly of the fast-food type.
I noticed first that the Moss Bros shop had closed (moved to the Bull Ring) and was to become some sort of cafe. This prompted a closer examination of the street and it was quite depressing. Even my favourite pub (Post Office Vaults) had closed - a sad loss.
There appears to have been no planning involved as the businesses involved just seemed to be located in a higgledy-piggledy manner.
What incentive is there for a visitor (like me) to visit the street? Who uses these outlets? I can't think that they are all sustainable in the long-term.
A sad decline in a once high-class street. But maybe that is the fate of High Streets throughout the country
 
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