Coming Soon? The long wait for Westfield

The recent announcement by Australian retail giant Westfield of their intent to build a £1billion ‘super-mall’ in Croydon has been met with mixed reaction. None more so than in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, who’s own experiences of this company were not quite what they expected.

The idea of an indoor shopping street, immune to the unpredictability of the English climate and able to draw in curious shoppers all year round is not a new concept. In Victorian times the ‘Arcade’ style shopping centre grew in popularity and such covered commercial hubs sprung up across the country. Many of these have survived to this day such as the Burlington Arcade in central London dating to 1819, still offering high end consumer goods to those who can afford them whilst attracting legions of curious window shoppers to their opulent passageways.

In the early days such places complemented the high street around them and even sparked a regeneration renaissance in their adjoining streets as retailers scrabbled to cash in on the consumers they would draw in.

Piccadilly itself draws it’s name from a type of shirt collar, Piccadill, that was sold in this area. This was before the days of globalisation as we see today and homogenised chain stores were a long way off. The units in these arcades were typically high end tailors, experts at their craft, offering highly individual and unique services.

Fast forward to the modern era and newly burgeoning pockets, increasingly outlandish tastes and an ‘out with the old, in with the new’ attitude ushered in a new retail experience during the 60’s. Many of the Victorian arcades were torn down to make way for modernist structures that the architects were convinced would soon become classics and stand the test of time. Birmingham’s Bull Ring was erected to fulfil the same function as the ageing arcades on a grander scale, and on Broadway in Bradford the Swan Arcade was torn down to be replaced with a glass and concrete tower block with retail units below.

Following the economic booms and collapses of the 80’s, the 90’s saw the return to consumerism in unprecedented levels and as retailers consolidated into ever larger groupings, their need for floor space grew exponentially.
The outcry over the brutalist approach to city centre regeneration of the 60’s and our new found love for 19th Century architecture meant that it was no longer viable to construct within cities at the pace the market demanded, and so the out-of-town shopping centre was born. Such places received (and continue to receive) massive support from councils in areas where they are proposed due to the potential for employment (albeit generally low-paid) and income from business rates they promise.

Whilst the benefits that can be derived from these centres have the allure of sustainability for a city, the downside, as we have discovered, is the death of the traditional high street and the loss of many small independent retailers who can no longer afford to keep their doors open through a combination of decreasing footfall, increasing business rates and an inability to offer loss-leading products or purchase at competitve prices comparable to the bulk buying power of the multinationals.

The proclamation by a company called Stannifer in 2003 that it was to build a £350million mixed use retail and leisure super-mall in the heart of the city of Bradford was met with excitement in some quarters of a city that was already showing the first shoots of high street decay and stagnation, most notably in City Hall. Retailers in the existing shopping precincts of the centre were understandably nervous. Plans to redevelop this area of town were first mooted in 1998 with a partnership between Bradford Council and a speculative investor called Magellan Properties, though realising that their ambition potentially outweighed their ability to deliver they sold the land to Stannifer to progress the scheme.

Planning permission for the project was granted on 10th September 2003 with the promise that 3000 new jobs would be created. Excitement and hope for the future rang high around the the council chamber and was met with a crescendo of optimism in the local paper, the Telegraph and Argus.
Demolition of the concrete buildings that had sprung up on the land in the 60’s, ironically neighbouring the building that replaced the magnificent Swan Arcade, began in March 2004. A flurry of activity was seen amongst Bradford shopkeepers nearby as everyone vied to be in the best position to exploit the new shoppers that would soon be flocking their way en route to the new mall. Accordingly, landowners in the surrounding areas increased their rents and forced out some independent retailers in order to cash in on higher rates they could expect from chain stores who had missed out on a seat in the main arena but could still make a profit from being located nearby.

Then, in December 2004, Westfield bought Stannifer and took over the project.

At first there were no outward signs of problems. Demolition continued and by the summer of 2006 the site had been largely cleared with an expected completion set to occur in late 2007. At this time however, Westfield were building their huge centre in Derby and so many of their workmen were unavailable meaning that this date was pushed back. Despite this, a huge foundation was dug into the ground in the place that would house the car park for the centre. At this point construction stopped, and was left in the same state in which it can be found to this day.

The official line from Westfield is that they are having diffculty in convincing enough tenants to offer assurances that they will take up space in the centre once it is built. BHS, whose existing store on the site was demolished in 2004, announced that they would not be seeking to return. Of the other secured tenants announced such as the Arcadia group chains (Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Burton etc), most already have stores elsewhere in the city centre which are expected to close if the mall is ever built leaving the city’s retail offer unchanged save for more empty units in an increasingly deserted high street.

Since 2006 ‘The Hole,’ as it is known locally, has stood empty, a monument to the power of speculative excitement over rational attitudes to regeneration. At 20 feet deep and 12 acres in size, with it’s rusting girders protruding from the muddy, water filled basin, The Hole has become something of a tourist attraction in the city. Many visitors go to see the spectacle and talk to locals of their feelings towards it. It seems strange that such a thing should generate so much interest, but the scale of the site is such that it is simply unbelievable to some that the situation has been allowed to continue as it has. Frustration reached such a peak that at one point the council attempted to buy the land back from Westfield so that it could be put to some form of use, but the company attached a price tag so
high that this became an impossibility.

The site has also been a rallying point for resistance to what many see as the wanton destruction of the city by their elected council. Seemingly unable to learn from their mistakes, Bradford Council have also approved the demolition of a 1930’s art-deco supercinema, the former Odeon, to make way for another nondescript glass and steel ‘mixed-use development’ in a conservation area overlooking the grade 2 listed Alhambra theatre and City Hall. Again, this scheme is dependent on pre-lets which are currently absent and a spirited campaign has been waged for the last 10 years to save
this much-loved building with its collosal copper domes and ornate interior mostly intact. Ironically, if it were not for the Westfield hole laying empty for so long, the demolition would likely have already occurred.

The hole has been enough to demonstrate to the people of Bradford that huge companies such as Westfield, and the politicians who are so easily blinded by the allure of jobs and investment, may not always be working towards a positive conclusion.

Campaigns have been sparked to ‘reclaim the hole’ in recent years. In 2009, a group of local residents decided to replace the hoardings surrounding the site which at the time were still shamelessly laden with adverts proclaiming “Your shopping experience coming soon” and “Your Westfield” (something that may soon be very familiar to the people of Croydon) with artwork of their own. The Westfield logo was brilliantly subverted to the word “Wastefield” and huge signs asked passers-by “What the hole’s going on?”.

Such was Westfield’s complete lack of interest in the site, these subversions went unnoticed by the company for a considerable period of time. Council workers sent to remove the new additions made the most half-hearted of attempts before leaving it all in place.

Finally in 2010, Westfield agreed to transfer a small strip of land on the boundary of the site to the council as a temporary arrangement in order to show some measure of goodwill to an increasingly hostile Bradford Public.
This was to become the Bradford Urban Garden and they gave a small amount of cash to a local arts organisation and the council in order to build and maintain it. In an incredible display of the unconnectedness of the company with the residents of the city, the first large scale use of this space was as a holding pen for the EDL when they made an ill-fated trip to the city hoping to capitalise on the widespread misconception of the city as a hotbed of Islamic extremism. As a large crowd threw missiles and smoke bombs at the police lines keeping them within the boundary of the garden, a
group scaled the hoardings and attempted to break out into the city via the hole, only to be pushed back into it by waves of local residents who were not willing to allow this group to spark a riot in the city.

Since this ‘opening event’, the Urban Garden has been reclaimed by the people of Bradford and it attracts many on sunny days. Ironically, should the shopping centre ever finally be built, it will be met with some hostility and lamentation at the loss of this space which has also come into use for small community festivals such as the annual Bradford Mayday celebrations and the Reggae Sunsplash.

With all being mostly quiet on the Westfield front since 2010, most residents have come to simply ignore the hole. The Telegraph and Argus, still fiercely loyal to the developers and the advertising revenue they no doubt expect them to bring, will print the occasional good-news “coming soon, honest” story, and in most cases disallow comments on their web-based versions of the articles since they so rapidly fill with outpourings of indignation from the people of Bradford. The only real news from the company came in 2011 when they announced revised ‘scaled down’ plans for a shopping centre and won significant concessions from the council over business rates in order to try to attract tenants.

The quiet was broken recently by the arrival of ‘Occupy Westfield’ to the site which has bought the spectacle back into the national gaze.

The election of George Galloway as MP for Bradford West in a by-election earlier this year caused an upheaval of political activism in the city. A group consisting largely of Respect Party members and supporters and financed by businesses close to the party made the decision to capitalise on the recent ‘Occupy’ movement and occupy the hole. This caused upset amongst the original Occupy activists (being as it is a fiercely anti-capitalist movement) since it at first appeared that the demands of the group was that the shopping centre should be built immediately. Perhaps sensing that they had misjudged the local sentiment in what many perceived as a propaganda stunt, their demands were changed to “something should happen” and that the recently Labour-led council should take full responsibility for the situation. The original statement made by the group was that they intended to “stay until their demands were met, or for 7 days, whichever comes sooner” although they opted to stay for a longer period of time than this once it became clear that the pace in which Westfield moves on such matters is pedestrian at best.

Correspondence to and from Westfield was relayed to the public via the local newspaper who praised the company whilst often deriding local protestors over health and safety grounds. The situation came to a head this month when Westfield took the protestors to court for an eviction order and won. The bailiffs cleared the hole of tents and people and having toyed with the idea of occupying the Urban Garden instead, the protestors finally left. Whilst the tactics of the group were often questionable, the result of bringing the failure of Westfield Bradford to the national eye is one for which they should be commended.

And so to the recent announcement that Westfield are to plough £1billion into building a new centre in Croydon. This news was understandably met with some disbelief in Bradford, and an empathy with the people who may face a similar fate to theirs. Familiar sloganeering and propaganda has no doubt filled the local press there and it will be the tip of conversation amongst it’s residents. There is no doubt that Westfield are once again speculating that the recession they claim has stalled the Bradford centre will be over by the time they expect the first tills to ring in Croydon.
Should this prove not to be the case however, and the downturn continues, when can the people of Croydon expect to see their shiny new retail cathedral? If all else fails, they will be more than welcome to take a trip to the North and use Britain’s biggest wishing-well in a search for answers.