A year has passed since I was standing in Cabot Circus, wearing a neon yellow high visibility jacket.

Yet the memories are so vivid that it feels as if it was only a couple of months ago that I was watching the final touches being put to Bristol's new £500-million shopping centre.

There was a relentless cacophony as heavy machinery was moved out. The air was filled with an all-pervasive dust that you could feel on your skin, and even taste in your mouth. Behind the plate glass windows of the shops a flurry of activity was taking place as clothes were put on rails and displays were laid out.

It seemed certain that the launch of Cabot Circus would take place as scheduled on Thursday, September 25, 2008 – contrary to the doubts of many who had wondered if the building work would be completed on time.

However, as a small group of us made our way through Cabot Circus and Quakers Friars on the day before the official opening ceremony, there was another doubt in my mind.

Would many people actually bother to visit?

For in the preceding months, stories about Cabot Circus on this website had been received with strongly-expressed hostility in the online comments section from a number of individuals.

Such had been the unpleasantness that the one of the winners of an Evening Post competition for a preview visit to Cabot Circus had almost pulled out because she had been so upset by the vitriolic remarks.

Then came opening day. And so did the people – tens of thousands of them – providing a powerful response to the internet cynics who had been almost gleefully anticipating the failure of Cabot Circus. Suddenly, the outpourings of a minority in the curious parallel universe of Cyberville seemed meaningless as people voted with their feet.

I was there at the weekend, sitting at a table outside one of the many busy cafes and restaurants: watching families enjoying themselves, couples walking along hand-in-hand, and groups of glamorous girls – all long hair and long legs – giggling together.

The scenes were typical of those at Cabot Circus over the past year, as people have gathered in what has become the city's answer to the village green or town marketplace – a place where you invariably bump into someone you know. Incidentally, the purchases in my shopping bags were hardly the result of the mindless consumerism so loathed by the critics of Cyberville.

Youngest boy had grown out of his trainers, and oldest boy needed a fleece to wear on a school camping trip – and surely it makes more sense to buy them locally?

When the first anniversary of the opening of Cabot Circus is celebrated on Friday, it will not only mark the opening of 140 shops and 25 restaurants, and 4,000 new jobs.

It will also mark the revival of Bristol city centre, which was so damaged by the World War II bombings, and the decline of the Broadmead after the opening of The Mall at Cribbs Causeway.

Now the heart of Bristol is beating again. And it began on Thursday, September 25, 2008, when the faceless cynics of Cyberville were silenced by the footsteps of thousands of people in the real world making their way into Cabot Circus.