First, a bit of history; I got involved in all this through Clay Cross Photographic Society. Part of the planning consent for the development is creation of a public art project. Public Artist Peter Maris is heading this up. CCPS were asked to contribute some images to an exhibition/ consultation in Clay Cross in December. I put some of my local images in - in particular, "Two Wrongs Make A Riot". Peter saw them, liked them, and approached GMI to see if they might want to use me for this project. Two draft project briefs and a load of emails later we had an agreement. My first site visit was last Friday.

Now, I live in Tupton, and have done since 2000. The transition from Sussex, where I lived before, was quite a culture shock. It also coincided with the closure of the Biwaters site. I remember, on my first shopping trip to Chesterfield, seeing the demonstration outside the town hall. Since then (and of course before that) there has been much talk of redeveloping Clay Cross town centre, and it seemed that all schemes were designed to come to naught, particularly with the recession. But now here we are, JCBs on site, Heras fencing all over the place, and all of a sudden it's serious.

So much so that it's been a rush over the last few days. My initial brief has been to record the site and the town centre in the state it's in now, before serious work starts. For example, both the Spiritualist Church and Sorrells yard are due to go very soon. I was fortunate enough today to get access to both, and now have a large number of images to record what will soon be gone.

But this project is about more than buildings and street corners. It's about businesses and people. I've been able to make contact with quite a few local businesses. Also, a number of people have come up and asked me what I was doing, and many of these encounters turned into interesting conversations along the lines of "when I was a lad...". I hope to maintain this contact, to see how these people and businesses change over the next 12 months. And of course you may be reading this blog in which case your comments will be welcome.