The Liberty Shopping Centre is a covered

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 collec ...

Romford Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romford ...

, the largest such centre in the town. It was originally built in 1968 and underwent a four-year redevelopment completed in 2003. The centre takes its name from the former

Liberty of Havering Havering, also known as Havering-atte-Bower, was a royal manor and ancient liberty whose area now forms part of, and gives its name to, the London Borough of Havering in Greater London. The manor was in the possession of the Crown from the 11th t ...

and is owned by the

Cosgrave Property Group The Cosgrave Property Group is an Irish property development company established by brothers Joseph, Michael, and Peter Cosgrave. It currently has loans from the National Asset Management Agency. The group is also known as ''Cosgrave Developme ...

. It is also the largest indoor shopping centre in the borough of Havering overall and covers of retail space, around 100 shops. The Liberty has an annual footfall of 23 million, equating to 425,000 people per week. It is linked to

Mercury Shopping Centre The Mercury Mall is an enclosed shopping centre in Romford town centre, in the London Borough of Havering, Greater London. It opened in June 1990 as Liberty 2. From 2006 to August 2010 it was owned by The Mall Fund and was known as The Mall Romfo ...

(formerly Liberty 2) by an underpass.

History

The Liberty Shopping Centre was first opened in 1968 in a joint deal between Hammerson and Standard Life Investments. In 1999 Hammerson acquired Standards Life's 50% interest for £53 million and in 2000 acquired the freehold on the land. In September 2006, Irish property developers, The

acquired the centre from Hammerson for £281 million. The centre underwent an extensive redevelopment which was completed in 2003 at a cost of £52 million. Previously, the main part of the centre was open-air, with several covered arcades running off from it linking it to other parts of the town centre. The changes undertaken in the 2000s included the covering of the main part of the centre with a glazed

roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...

, and the development of a new car parking facility, plus new large stores for

Next Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

and H&M. Several existing stores were remodelled or relocated, or received other modernisations, as part of the redesign, including Boots, BHS and

W H Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

. Once the planning application had been granted for the transformation of the centre, work started in August 2001. In April 2003, the centre achieved practical completion.

References

External links

Official web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberty Shopping centres in the London Borough of Havering Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Havering Shopping malls established in 1968 Romford