PowerSwitch

Times OnLine - 02/06/08

Shopping centres equivalent to eight Bluewaters are due to open over the course of 2008 and 2009, just as the economy heads into its worst period for more than a decade.

Article continues ...

Almost makes you feel sorry for the developers doesn't it?

What are we going to use all those big barns for? Storing straw? That is if all of them actually get built.

My local (ish) paper was all doom and gloom last week regarding the High St retailers in Lincoln.

HIGH STREET DUO LENGTHEN LIST OF CRUNCH CASUALTIES
Be the first reader to comment on this story

Major high street retailers look set to close their doors for good in the latest wave of gloom to hit Lincoln's business community.

Closing down signs at Internacionale and French Connection in Lincoln's High Street confirm they will join a growing list of shops to have ceased trading in recent months.

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/dis ... ebarsearch

Don't know how to shorten the URL, sorry!

We have a ginormous new town centre development going up just up the road from us.

Will be interesting to see how it works out.

In Cardiff we have the new St.Davids 2 development, and then there's the new Southgate redevelopment going on in Bath as well (where I used to work).

Madness, and I suspect the developers are a little worried at the moment.

I was listening to something on the radio the other day (can't remember what), but it was someone from British Land. They're still building big office blocks because they reckon they'll be ready for the upturn that's bound to come, when they'll be in demand .

New developments such as Liverpool One, and two more mammoth centres due to open later this year - Bristol Cabot Circus and Westfield London - take years of planning and are almost impossible to stop.

Centre of Bristol has been a building site for near on two years now, almost finished. I hear they are have problems filling the units though.

Anyway this is nothing new, grand infrastructure projects often come online just as recession breaks. This is because recessions follow booms and this projects were designed and signed of during booms. See Canary Wharf (construction of began in 1988, with phase one completed in 1991), the developers Olympia and York Canary Wharf Limited filed for bankruptcy in '92. The World Trade Centre (construction began in '66, completed in '70 and '72) in time for the recession following the oil shocks and Empire States Building (completed in 1931!!). They all opened just when they weren't needed.

These shopping centres are the same. We're generally skint these days though so instead of building new record breaking buildings all we can manage is a shopping centre.

GavinT wrote:In Cardiff we have the new St.Davids 2 development...

Yes they demolished a perfectly good ice-rink! I was really disappointed, visits to Cardiff with the kids won't be the same. Shops are, well, boring. They wouldn't be quite so boring if they weren't all the bloody same, too.

Cardiff Market's good, mind

We'll build lots of shopping malls so that people can buy all the things we import from China!

Great idea, all that spending will boost the economy!

How will the items be paid for, if everything is made in China?

Don't worry, we'll extend lots of credit, and allow people to spend the equity in their house.

What happens if banks become unwilling to lend, or house prices fall?

That's impossible in the UK....

Doh!