First day jitters are part and parcel of new adventures and experiences.

For those who have pulled together to help re-open the beautiful Dewsbury Arcade - where the ribbon was cut on Saturday, September 5 to mark a new chapter and historic milestone for the town - butterflies were fluttering in the tummies and questions of self-doubt were swirling in heads.

Would anyone turn up for the grand ceremony? Will people want to see what the Grade II-Listed building - in the heart of Dewsbury town centre - now looks like after a major renovation and refurbishment?

Those hard-working people of the Dewsbury Arcade Group - a not-for-profit community organisation - needn’t have worried as a horde of people gathered in Market Place to see Baroness Sayeeda Warsi’s trusted scissors kick-off the site’s new era - the UK’s first community run shopping arcade - before surging through the open gates.

“I can’t tell you how pleased we are,” Jackie Ramsay, chair of the Arcade Group told the Reporter Series. “We are pleased that it has finally arrived, that we have got this day and we are able to welcome people from Dewsbury.

“We are just so pleased that we have got such a beautiful building. It is a wonderful heritage building. It was lost and now you’ve got it. It is not just a case of it being refurbished. It has been refurbished and it is stunning.”

On those opening morning nerves, Jackie revealed: “We were worried when we were going to do our speeches. Will we have people there? Will they want to come and see it?

“But we were mobbed. And that is so brilliant. Most people I have seen are really happy. They want it.

Jackie Ramsay, chair of the Dewsbury Arcade Group. Photo by John Clifton.

placeholder image — Jackie Ramsay, chair of the Dewsbury Arcade Group. Photo by John Clifton.

“I just hope they come back and support the tenants and that this is the start of a new Dewsbury. It’s buzzing. We said we wanted a vibrant arcade and wow, haven’t we got that!”

She added: “One of the things about us being a community-benefit society means that people are not in competition and that everybody is working together. Our members are really supportive of us and our board is supportive.

“The traders are working together too. We have had people from one shop helping build shelves in somebody else's shop. It has been like that all week. Everybody has helped each other out.”

Tanisha Bramwell, an independent councillor for Dewsbury West, said inside the building’s grand corridor:

“It has been led by people who care about Dewsbury. For me, it brings back so many memories.

“Everybody should get behind it because this will be the start of the regeneration of Dewsbury.”