THERE’S not many things you can guarantee in this life, but one thing is a cast iron certainty... it will change.

One way or another, aspects of our lives will be different from one year to the next.

Now, whether that is always for the better is another argument altogether.

Take our grocery shopping habits.

Somewhere down the line we warmed to the idea of doing our weekly shopping under one roof, forsaking the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker for the supermarket, the supermarket and, erm, the supermarket.

Now I can’t help but notice how many ‘ye olde sweet shops’ are making a comeback, how many people are flocking to artisan markets and how more and more households are preferring to buy their meat and veg from farm shops and traditional independent traders. Are we doing this out of sentiment?

I have to confess that I love change. I find it really exciting.

I was a frequent visitor to Northwich over a decade go, through a family friend running a little watering hole in the town centre.

And when I joined the Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich Guardian last summer, the one thing that struck me was how little had changed.

Yes, the Drill Field had been replaced by a small housing estate, and there was a rather frustrating gyratory in operation which meant I went round in circles a few times until I found my bearings, but all in all Northwich was pretty much how I’d remembered it.

But what a difference a year makes!

Rather than arriving back in the land that time forgot, Northwich is on the brink of so many exciting new projects and much-needed investment.

Hayhurst Quay for starters – the new Waitrose is almost built across from our Theatre Court office.

Plans for the Barons Quay development are in the advanced stages; the Lion Salt Works is taking shape; Witton Street has had a facelift and Memorial Hall – controversial as this development is – is about to be transformed into a lifestyle centre.

Now I know all these plans are not pleasing to everyone – but surely investment of this nature has to be welcomed?

Yes, the road works are a nuisance, by their very nature they disrupt traffic, and therefore us.

But disruption for a few months is a price worth paying when the end product is brand new facilities which will breathe new life into a town.

I’ve worked for several newspapers across the north west before joining the mid Cheshire team and believe me, there are some other towns whose people would give their right arm for the changes that are happening in Northwich right now.