The Trafford Centre is a large indoor

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre ( Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known colle ...

and entertainment complex in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

, England. It opened in 1998 and is third largest in the United Kingdom by retail space. Originally developed by

the Peel Group The Peel Group is a British infrastructure and property investment business, based in Manchester. In 2022, its Peel Land and Property estate extends to of buildings, and over of land and water. Peel retains minority stakes in its former ports ...

, the Trafford Centre was sold to Capital Shopping Centres, later to become

Intu Intu Properties plc was a British real estate investment trust (REIT), largely focused on shopping centre management and development. Originally named Liberty International plc, it changed its name in May 2010 to Capital Shopping Centres Group p ...

, in 2011 for £1.65 billion setting a record as the costliest single property sale in British history. The battle to obtain permission to build the centre was amongst the longest and most expensive in United Kingdom planning history. the Trafford Centre had Europe's largest food court and the UK's busiest

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

History

Genesis

The site was owned by the

Manchester Ship Canal Company The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the rive ...

which John Whittaker's Peel Holdings had been acquiring shares in since 1971 Manchester City Council also had a stake, but by the mid 1980s Whittaker had a majority control and proposed building an out-of-town shopping centre, and other schemes. The council faced a conflict of interest as both a local planning authority and shareholder. Its minority shareholding also no longer gave it any real control over the company. Accordingly, in 1986 it surrendered the right to appoint all but one of the Manchester Ship Canal's

directors Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

, and sold its shares to Whittaker for £10 million. Manchester City Council opposed Whittaker's proposal for retail development, stating it would impact negatively on the city centre economy, but accepted it was "obviously in the interests of the

shareholders A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal ow ...

Peel Holdings The Peel Group is a British infrastructure and property investment business, based in Manchester. In 2022, its Peel Land and Property estate extends to of buildings, and over of land and water. Peel retains minority stakes in its former ports ...

submitted a

planning application Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council Trafford Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and pr ...

for development of approximately of land in 1986. The application was called in by the

Secretary of State for the Environment The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment (DoE). This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of T ...

and legal disputes ensued requiring two

public inquiries In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

before planning permission was granted. Objections included congestion fears on the

M60 motorway The M60 motorway, Manchester Ring Motorway or Manchester Outer Ring Road is an orbital motorway in North West England. Built over a 40-year period, it passes through most of Greater Manchester's metropolitan boroughs except for Wigan and Bol ...

, and adverse consequences for retailers across Greater Manchester. Planning permission was granted in 1993 before being blocked by the Court of Appeal, then reinstated in 1995 by the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

. Twelve years after being proposed, the Trafford Centre opened on 10 September 1998. Construction had taken 27 months at a cost of £600 million. The Barton Square and Great Hall extensions opened in 2008, at a combined cost of over £100 million.

Intu

Peel Group sold the centre to

Capital Shopping Centres Intu Properties plc was a British real estate investment trust (REIT), largely focused on shopping centre management and development. Originally named Liberty International plc, it changed its name in May 2010 to Capital Shopping Centres Group p ...

(CSC) in January 2011 for £1.6 billion, in cash and shares, and John Whittaker, chairman of Peel Group, became deputy chairman of CSC. He later claimed he could have sold the centre for over £2 billion if he had been prepared to accept just cash. Nevertheless the £1.6 billion deal remained the largest property transaction in British history, and the biggest European property deal of 2011.

was renamed Intu in 2013 and spent £7 million rebranding the "Intu Trafford Centre". , Intu claimed a

fair market value The fair market value of property is the price at which it would change hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller. The term is used throughout the Internal Revenue Code, as well as in bankruptcy laws, in many state laws, and by sever ...

of £2.312 billion for the centre. However, the firm entered administration in June 2020 and the centre was placed into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

by its creditors in November 2020. In 2020, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, who had loaned Intu £250 million in 2017, exercised their rights as creditors to take ownership of the complex.

Post Intu

Construction of the

Trafford Park Line The Trafford Park Line is a light rail line on the Manchester Metrolink network in Greater Manchester, England, running from Pomona to The Trafford Centre. Its name derives from Trafford Park, an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, ...

Metrolink tram connection from the Trafford Centre to Manchester city centre via began in 2016 and opened during 2020.

Building

John Whittaker, chose a lavish, unorthodox style seeking to avoid the centre rapidly appearing dated and stale, as so many United Kingdom shopping centres built in the 1960s and 1970s had become. Although the extravagant

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

and Baroque design may be viewed as gaudy, he argued the prospect of the shopping centre rapidly ageing was mitigated. The design was a collaboration between the architectural practices of

Chapman Taylor Chapman Taylor is a global practice of award-winning architects, masterplanners and interior designers, based in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The practice has completed over 3,000 projects and won over 300 design awards over its history, i ...

and Manchester-based Leach Rhodes Walker.

Main contractor A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...

was Bovis, with structural engineering services provided by

WSP Group WSP Global Inc. is a Canadian company with American and British roots, providing management and consultancy services to the built and natural environment. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. After the purchase of New York-headquartered ...

. Such was the size and detailing of the building, architects ended up producing over 3,000 separate

shop drawings A shop drawing is a drawing or set of drawings produced by the contractor, supplier, manufacturer, subcontractor, consultants, or fabricator. Shop drawings are typically required for prefabricated components. Examples of these include: ele ...

and the construction process required 24 chartered architects to work on the project full-time to monitor it. Peel Avenue, Regent Crescent, the Dome, and

The Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of '' Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, th ...

, comprising the original centre were designed so that visitor flows split equally between their two floors. The Cinema and other leisure facilities are on the third floor, with the infrastructure for an additional fourth floor built ready during the initial construction. There are three domed atria along the length of the

mall Mall commonly refers to a: * Shopping mall * Strip mall * Pedestrian street * Esplanade Mall or MALL may also refer to: Places Shopping complexes * The Mall (Sofia) (Tsarigradsko Mall), Sofia, Bulgaria * The Mall, Patna, Patna, Bihar, India ...

, and the developers claim its £5 million middle dome is bigger than St Paul's Cathedral.

Decor

The Trafford Centre also contains eclectic

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and

Egyptian Revival Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat ...

elements. It is decorated primarily in shades of white, pink and gold with ivory, jade and caramel coloured

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

throughout. there were or £5.8 million of Tuscan

and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

flooring from

Montignoso Montignoso is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Massa and Carrara in the Italian region Tuscany, located about northwest of Florence and about southeast of Massa. Montignoso borders the following municipalities: Forte dei Marmi, M ...

and

Quarrata Quarrata is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Pistoia in the Italian region Tuscany, located about west of Florence and about south of Pistoia. Main sights *Propositura (church) of Santa Maria Assunta * Pieve (pleban church) of Sa ...

, and gold leaf adorns the building's columns. The marble floors and handrails are polished nightly to maintain the centre's opulence. The Trafford Centre has decorative features such as red roses of Lancaster which pay homage to the local area and North West England. Griffin statues adorn the exterior, the heraldic symbol of the

de Trafford baronets The de Trafford Baronetcy, of Trafford Park in the County Palatine of Lancaster is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Background The creation of Trafford: In April 1016, King Cnut Sweynson of Norway and his army swept North-Wes ...

who historically owned much of the land in modern-day

Trafford Trafford is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England, with an estimated population of 235,493 in 2017. It covers Retrieved on 13 December 2007. and includes the area of Old Trafford and the towns of Altrincham, Stretford, Ur ...

. Elsewhere, fake

palm trees Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm ( ...

and neo-classical decorative

pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s made of painted,

medium-density fibreboard Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product made by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming it into panels by applying high t ...

have received criticism.

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

architecture critic Architecture criticism is the critique of architecture. Everyday criticism relates to published or broadcast critiques of buildings, whether completed or not, both in terms of news and other criteria. In many cases, criticism amounts to an assessmen ...

John Parkinson-Bailey described the Trafford Centre as a building which "will not appeal to purists" and the range of interior architecture as "bewildering". Portraits around the walls of the mall depict members of the Whittaker family. A Mercedes car formerly belonging to John Whittaker's mother was initially displayed on the first floor mall outside but is now in Trafford Palazzo.

Sculpture

A feature of the centre, and particularly Trafford Palazzo, is the statuary, fountains and other sculpture. There are over 100 figures, mainly in a classical

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, or Art Nouveau style.

Altrincham Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester city centre, southwest of Sale and east of Warrington. At the 2011 Census, it had a population ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Colin Spofforth created bronze figures of a jazz band for the

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

theme, and the crest, above the main entrance. The latter assembles a griffin,

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

and

Roman centurion A centurion (; la, centurio , . la, centuriones, label=none; grc-gre, κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ) was a position in the Roman army during classical antiquity, nominally the commander of a century (), a military unit of around 80 l ...

, once more referencing the arms of the de Trafford family. The centurion holds two lightning bolts, a reminder of the

power stations A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many po ...

formerly on the site. File:Trafford New Orleans sculpture Dec 2016.jpg, Spirit of New Orleans (1998) bronze File:Trafford Centre Crest A Dec 2017.jpg, Trafford Centre Crest (2007) File:Trafford Centre Sculpture F Dec 2016.jpg, The Lady with the Lamp in

The Great Hall The Great Hall is a music and cultural events venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built in 1889 by Gordon & Helliwell for the West End branch of the YMCA of Greater Toronto, Toronto Young Men's Christian Association, the building has served as th ...

File:Trafford Centre-Barton Square link (2).JPG, Greek and Art Nouveau style figures in the link to Trafford Palazzo File:Barton Square, Trafford Centre, May 2013 (6).JPG, Lion sculptures in Trafford Palazzo File:Trafford Centre sculpture A Dec 2017.jpg, Roman style sculpture in Trafford Palazzo File:Dolphin fountain, Trafford Centre (2).JPG, Dolphin fountain File:Mermaid Fountain Trafford Centre 28 Nov 2017.jpg, Mermaid fountain, Trafford Palazzo

The Orient

The Orient is Europe's largest food court with 1,600 seats and 35 retail outlets. It is decorated in the style of a 1930s ocean liner, incorporating detail representing China,

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, Egypt, Italy,

americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

and Morocco. The two floors incorporate restaurants, bars and fast food outlets in sight of a giant screen.

Great Hall

The Great Hall opened 2007, its glazed structure housing five restaurants and cafes. Construction took 18 months at a cost of £26 million and incorporates a sweeping staircase with

balustrades A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

. The centre claims its Great Hall has the largest chandelier in the world at wide and high. The feature incorporates three internal maintenance walkways and weighs five ton. Trafford centre 6

Trafford Palazzo (formerly Barton Square)

The Trafford Centre - Barton Square - geograph

Entrance to Barton Square, Trafford Centre

The , covered Trafford Palazzo opened in 2008 and cost £70 million. The former name referenced nearby

Barton-upon-Irwell Barton upon Irwell (also known as Barton-on-Irwell or Barton) is a suburb of the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 12,462 in 2014. History Barton Old Hall, a brick-built house degraded to a farmhouse, was the se ...

. Trafford Palazzo is linked to the main Trafford Centre by a glazed bridge and incorporates a mock

Italian renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

square with fountain and campanile tower. Bartonsqnew

A £75 million renovation commenced in mid 2018 for Primark to open as an anchor tenant in 2020. The first floor extension created 110,000 sq ft of new retail floor space. Bartonsqroof

Leisure

Leisure facilities include a 20-screen cinema;

Laser Quest Laser Quest is a British indoor laser tag franchise founded in Manchester, United Kingdom in 1989. Its laser tag games use infrared (IR) hand-held units and vests. Laser Quest's oldest centre is located in Stourbridge, West Midlands, England ...

arena; miniature golf;

dodgems Bumper cars or dodgems are the generic names for a type of flat amusement ride consisting of multiple small electrically powered cars which draw power from the floor and/or ceiling, and which are turned on and off remotely by an operator. Bumpe ...

;

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

; arcade games and a

Sea Life Centre Sea Life is a chain of commercial sea life-themed aquarium attractions. there are 53 Sea Life attractions (including standalone Sea Life centres, mini Sea Life features within resort theme parks, and Legoland submarine rides) around the world. ...

aquarium.

Travel and transport

, 10 percent of the UK population lived within a 45-minute drive of the Trafford Centre.

Road

The Trafford Centre has 12,500 car spaces and 350 coach spaces and is off the M60 (Junctions 9 and 10). Its popularity has resulted in traffic congestion on the M60's Barton High-Level Bridge, requiring a link road adjacent to the M60 crossing the ship canal on a new lift bridge. All vehicles entering the centre have number plate details recorded via

automatic number plate recognition Automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR; see also other names below) is a technology that uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates to create vehicle location data. It can use existing closed-circuit te ...

. Since its introduction in 2003 at a cost of £220,000 the system has reduced the number of thefts of and from vehicles to a level described as "negligible". The ANPR tracks cars which have been used for serious offences and details of any car with such a

number plate A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate (Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificatio ...

can then be passed to Stretford Police Station.

Bus

There is a bus station at the west end of the Trafford Centre with services to most towns in Greater Manchester.

Light rail

The centre is served by two stops in the

of the

Manchester Metrolink Manchester Metrolink (branded locally simply as Metrolink) is a tram/ light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has 99 stops along of standard-gauge route, making it the most extensive light rail system in the United Ki ...

network. The terminating

Trafford Centre tram stop The Trafford Centre is a tram stop built for Greater Manchester's Manchester Metrolink, Metrolink light rail system, built to serve passengers boarding and alighting at the Trafford Centre on the Trafford Park Line. Previously known as ''intu T ...

serves the west of the centre while the

Barton Dock Road tram stop Barton Dock Road is a tram stop built on the Trafford Park Line of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system. The stop is located on Barton Dock Road by the remodelled Peel Circle roundabout, and was created to serve passengers boarding ...

serves the east of the centre and Trafford Palazzo. Until 2020, the nearest Metrolink stop to the site was Stretford, and a shuttle bus had connected the two.

In popular culture

* The setting for ''Shopping City'' on BBC Two. * Featured in 2008 BBC documentary series, '' Britain From Above'', highlighted a transition from industry to services. * The Orient food court was used as a location in the 2008 post-apocalyptic drama Survivors. * Focal point of

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...