Musings of a London Property Search Agent

Westfield Shopping Centre will be opened today by Mayor Boris Jonson at 10.30am.  This will be the largest shopping centre in London and apparently the largest city-centre shopping centre in Europe.  It marks the beginning of the end of the building site at the side of the West Cross Route between Shepherd’s Bush and Holland Park.

The Westfield website is keen to project a quality image and have managed to lure a number of luxury retailers in addition to high street brands and the 3 main department stores: House of Fraser, Debenhams and M&S.  The green gang will be disappointed at the high number of parking spaces (4,500) allowed for this development but drivers will love the valet parking (£5 plus parking for a limited time) and the ’state of the art’ parking facilities which guide drivers to a free space.  Hopefully the designers have made it equally accessible to tube users and pedestrians.

Love it or hate it, the centre should have a positive impact on house prices both in Shepherd’s Bush,  and the surrounding areas such as West Kensington, Holland Park and Ladbroke Grove.  Many of the independent retailers around Shepherd’s Bush have a very different offering to the main retailers in Westfield and the more specialist among them may benefit from the increased traffic and the others will have to adapt to survive.  For local residents it will always be quicker to pop into a local shop than to walk miles through the shopping centre for a few items but the increased amenities will certainly be a draw in an area which has struggled with it’s identity as the poor relation to Holland Park, Kensington, Brook Green and Chiswick.

Residents should make a point of continuing to use their local shops if they don’t want them to vanish as if the economic slowdown coupled with Westfield force too many closures, the resulting landscape of closed or empty shops would certainly not be appealing to buyers.

One last thing - Property Week have just issued the news that the Candys are exiting the Noho development of the Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia, leaving the development in the hands of Icelandic bank Haupthing.  Watch this space the London Property Search Agent is monitoring retail closures near Westfield.

Technorati Tags: Candy Brothers, Fitzrovia, Holland Park House Prices, Ladbroke Grove House Prices, London Property Search Agent, Noho Development, Shepherds Bush House Prices, Shopping Centre, West Ken Property Prices, West Kensington House Prices, Westfield

Tags: Candy Brothers, Fitzrovia, Holland Park House Prices, Ladbroke Grove House Prices, London Property Search Agent, Noho Development, Shepherds Bush House Prices, Shopping Centre, West Ken Property Prices, West Kensington House Prices, Westfield