Westfield London is a large

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 ...

in White City,

west London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North Londo ...

, England, developed by the

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio ...

at a cost of £1.6bn, on a

brownfield In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land prev ...

site formerly the home of the 1908

Franco-British Exhibition The Franco-British Exhibition was a large public fair held in London between 14 May and 31 October 1908. The exhibition attracted 8 million visitors and celebrated the Entente Cordiale signed in 1904 by the United Kingdom and France. The chief ar ...

. The site is bounded by the

West Cross Route The West Cross Route (WCR) is a 0.75 mile (1.2 km) segment of dual carriageway of the A3220 route in West London running north–south between the northern elevated roundabout junction with the western end of Westway ( A40) and the southern Ho ...

( A3220), the Westway ( A40) and

Wood Lane Wood Lane (A219, formerly A40) is a street in London. It runs north from Shepherd's Bush, under the Westway (A40) past Wormwood Scrubs where it meets Scrubs Lane. The road is wholly in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham ( W12 postal ...

( A219). It opened on 30 October 2008 and became the largest covered shopping development in the capital; originally a retail floor area of , further investment and expansion led to it becoming the largest shopping centre in Europe by March 2018, an area of . The mall is anchored by department stores

John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

, and House of Fraser, as well as multi brand retailer

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 large fast fashion brand

Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not us ...

. Former anchor

Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...

closed down in April 2020.

History

The development is on a large

site, part of which was once the location of the 1908

. The initial site clearance demolished the set of halls still remaining from the exhibition (their cheap-to-build, white-painted blank facades are said to be the origin of the name White City). There were also considerable precautions needed during demolition due to the expectation of finding unexploded bombs from raids on a local munitions factory during the World War II

blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

. Elsewhere on the site was a

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

railway depot, which had to be kept fully operational while a new depot was built underground to allow the new shopping centre to be built above both the new depot, and on the old depot site. The old depot was then demolished. The initial plan for a shopping centre at this location was developed by a consortium, the largest company involved being the UK division of Australian property company

Multiplex Multiplex may refer to: * Multiplex (automobile), a former American car make * Multiplex (comics), a DC comic book supervillain * Multiplex (company), a global contracting and development company * Multiplex (assay), a biological assay which measu ...

. However, due to heavy financial losses in other ventures, including the construction of the new

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 2002 to 2003. The stadium ...

, Multiplex was forced to sell its stake to the

. The development was built by Westfield Construction, the developer's own construction arm and was delivered on schedule.

Robert Bird Group Robert Bird Group (RBG), established in 1982, is an Australian global consulting engineering firm. RBG became a member of the Surbana Jurong Group in late 2017. Services Robert Bird Group provides structural engineering, civil engineering, ...

were the structural engineers for the job. The roof was designed by Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering (Stuttgart, Germany). The project took five years to build, employing 8,000 people. On the 7 July 2015, Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan planned to explode a bomb which consisted of 10 kg of

urea nitrate Urea nitrate is a fertilizer-based high explosive that has been used in improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and various terrorist acts elsewhere in the world such as in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. It has a dest ...

inside the shopping centre. The attack was set to occur on the 10 year anniversary of the

7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...

, but was thwarted by police.

Opening

The centre was opened to the public on 30 October 2008 by

Frank Lowy Sir Frank P. Lowy ( ; born 22 October 1930) is an Australian-Israeli businessman of Jewish Slovakian-Hungarian origins and the former long-time Chairman of Westfield Corporation, a global shopping centre company with billion of assets under ...

, CEO of

, in an event also attended by Mayor

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

, with a retail floor area of . It became the largest covered shopping centre in London having overtaken the

Whitgift Centre The Whitgift Centre is a large shopping centre in the town centre of Croydon, opening in stages between 1968 and 1970. The centre comprises of retail space, and was the largest covered shopping development in Greater London until the opening of ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

. Amid great hype, two million shoppers visited the centre in its first three weeks, despite the ongoing

credit crunch A credit crunch (also known as a credit squeeze, credit tightening or credit crisis) is a sudden reduction in the general availability of loans (or credit) or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from banks. A credit cr ...

in the UK. However the financial crisis of the time did cause a swift fall in shoppers and some shops forcing to close in 2009. While some commentators suspected Westfield London to fail during the economic gloom, the centre reported increased sales in 2010 following an unexpectedly large number of tourist shoppers.

Extension

On 16 February 2012, Hammersmith & Fulham Council approved a 700,000 sq ft extension to the north of the existing site. Building work began in 2014, and the extension opened in three phases. The first phase opened in March 2018, and the final phase opened in October 2018. Once the extension was completed, Westfield London's size increased to , making it the largest shopping centre in Europe. The north side of the extension is bounded by a railway viaduct, and the south side of the extension is adjunct to the original shopping centre. The extension replaces an industrial estate which previously occupied the area, divided by Ariel Way. The extension includes of retail space including a 70,000 sq ft

store, offices, new streets, public spaces, and approximately 1,522 new homes. The development ranges from four to twelve storeys high with one building of 20 storeys. The work also includes modifications to

Shepherd's Bush railway station Shepherd's Bush station is a railway station located in the district of Shepherd's Bush in Greater London, England, UK. It opened on 29 September 2008 on the West London line and is served by London Overground and Southern rail services. It l ...

, relocation of the

White City bus station White City bus station serves the White City area of west London and Westfield London shopping centre. The bus station was opened on 29 November 2008 to serve the new Westfield London shopping centre. The station has been built around the G ...

and reuse of the Dimco Buildings, and pedestrian links on the east side of the site connecting Hammersmith & Fulham with

Kensington & Chelsea The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is an Inner London borough with royal status. It is the smallest borough in London and the second smallest district in England; it is one of the most densely populated administrative regions in the ...

The department store

is the occupant of an 'anchor store' within the extension. Kidzania, a part of the extension, opened in 2015. In 2015, a group of Arab terrorists tried to blow up the Westfield London but they were stopped by police. They wanted the bombing to be around the same day as that of the 2005 London attacks anniversary.

COVID-19

On 28 April 2020 it was announced that

Westfield London store had closed permanently due to the COVID-19 lockdown and entering administration. On 28 July Hammersmith & Fulham Council's Planning Committee approved Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield's planning application on transforming two-thirds of House of Fraser's space into office spaces and two separate retail units that will face the inside of the centre. Currently the Debenhams space is occupied by Harrods Outlet.

Constituent sections

Retail area

It has a retail floor area of . The centre features around 320 stores, including AllSaints,

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

Bershka Bershka () is a clothing retailer company created in 1998 in Spain. It is part of the Spanish Inditex group (which also owns brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and Zara Home Zara Home is a company ...

Boots A boot is a type of footwear. Boot or Boots may also refer to: Businesses * Boot Inn, Chester, Cheshire, England * Boots (company), a high-street pharmacy chain and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom * The Boot, Cromer St ...

Bose Bose may refer to: * Bose (crater), a lunar crater * ''Bose'' (film), a 2004 Indian Tamil film starring Srikanth and Sneha * Bose (surname), a surname (and list of people with the name) * Bose, Italy, a ''frazioni'' in Magnano, Province of Biella ...

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...

Cotton On Cotton On Group is Australia's largest global retailer, known for its fashion clothing and stationery brands. As of 2020, it has over 1,500 stores in 18 countries employing 22,000 people across seven brands: Cotton On, Cotton On Kids, Cotton O ...

(includes RUBI and Factorie),

Dorothy Perkins Dorothy Perkins is an online British women's fashion brand based in the United Kingdom. Formerly a store chain, it sold both its own range of clothes and branded fashion goods until February 2021, when it became part of Boohoo.com, having bee ...

, Dwell,

Early Learning Centre The Early Learning Centre (ELC) is a British retailer that sells toys aimed at younger children. It is part of The Entertainer (through its parent company TEAL Group Holdings). It was a subsidiary of Mothercare until 2019. History The origin ...

Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...

, Gerry Weber, Hackett,

Hollister Co Hollister Co., often advertised as Hollister or HCo., is a retail brand owned by Abercrombie & Fitch Co, selling apparel, accessories, and fragrances. Goods are available in-store and through the company's online store. Hollister uses a narrativ ...

, House of Fraser, H.Samuel, Jaeger,

Kurt Geiger Kurt Geiger is a luxury British footwear and accessories brand. Kurt Geiger has around 70 stores, and approximately 170 concessions within department stores, including Harrods and Selfridges. Kurt Geiger owns three brands Kurt Geiger London, KG K ...

, Lego,

Mamas & Papas Mamas & Papas is a UK-based nursery brand and manufacturer supplying prams, pushchairs, baby products, furniture and maternity wear. It was established in Huddersfield in 1981 by David and Luisa Scacchetti, both of Italian ancestry, who ...

, Mango,

, Nomination, Oakley, Reiss,

River Island River Island is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores and online. Best known for its trend focused womenswear offering, River Isl ...

schuh Schuh (pronounced //, like "shoe") is a Scottish footwear retailer based in Livingston, Scotland. It has 132 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company is predominantly a branded shoe stockist, selling over 80 brands, including: Conv ...

Starbucks Coffee Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 cou ...

, Tesla,

Topshop TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS o ...

, Uniqlo, the multiplex cinema

Vue Vue or VUE may refer to: Places * Vue, Loire-Atlantique, a commune in France * The Vue, a skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina Arts, entertainment and media * Vue (band), a rock and roll band from San Francisco, California * Vue Cinemas, a c ...

Waitrose Waitrose & Partners (formally Waitrose Limited) is a brand of British supermarkets, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. It was acquired in 1937 by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership, which still se ...

and Zara. The development also includes a

high-end In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast t ...

retail area called The Village. The area includes brands

Burberry Burberry is a British luxury fashion house established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry headquartered in London, England. It currently designs and distributes ready to wear, including trench coats (for which it is most famous), leather accessorie ...

, De Beers
Georg Jensen

Gucci Gucci (, ; ) is an Italian high-end luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragran ...

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ranging from luxury bags and leather ...

Miu Miu Miu Miu is an Italian high fashion women's clothing and accessory brand and a fully owned subsidiary of Prada. It is headed by Miuccia Prada and headquartered in Paris, France. History Miu Miu was established in 1992 by Miuccia Prada. The name ...

, Mulberry, Myla,

Tiffany & Co Tiffany & Co. (colloquially known as Tiffany's) is a high-end luxury jewelry and specialty retailer, headquartered on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It sells jewelry, sterling silver, porcelain, crystal, stationery, fragrances, water bottles, watc ...

and

Versace Gianni Versace S.r.l. (), usually referred to as Versace ( ), is an Italian luxury fashion company founded by Gianni Versace in 1978 known for flashy prints and bright colors. The company produces Italian-made ready-to-wear and accessories, as ...

. File:Westfield London The Village 200906.jpg, 'The Village' File:Westfield London Food Court 200906.jpg, Food Court File:Westfield foodcourt.jpg, Food Court File:Goin to the mall (14864243941).jpg, Main Atrium File:Westfield London Interior 1 200906.jpg, Interior File:Westfield London Level 2 Restaurant.jpg, The Loft

Vue digital cinema

opened a seventeen-screen cinema on 12 February 2010, including five 3-D-enabled screens, with a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of almost 3,000.

Transport connections

As part of the planning permission for the shopping centre, Westfield Group contributed £170m towards local transport improvements, with Transport for London contributing a further £30m. These transport improvements now serve the shopping centre, as well as the surrounding area. *

: Two Underground stations serve the centre - a newly built Wood Lane station (

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is con ...

and Hammersmith & City lines) on the western side, and the rebuilt Shepherd's Bush station ( Central line) on the southern side. There are also two other stations close by; White City and

Shepherd's Bush Market Shepherd's Bush Market is a street market in Shepherd's Bush, London. The market is located on the east side of the railway viaduct for the Hammersmith and City Tube line, and is bordered on the north side by the Uxbridge Road, and on the south ...

. *

London Overground London Overground (also known simply as the Overground) is a suburban rail network serving London and its environs. Established in 2007 to take over Silverlink Metro routes, (via archive.org). it now serves a large part of Greater London as w ...

/ Southern:

is a newly constructed station on the West London Line. The station, which opened on 28 September 2008, is located on the southern side of the Westfield centre, next to the Central line tube station. The opening of the station was delayed by several months when the finished platform was found to be 18 inches narrower than the required width. *Bus and taxi: The Shepherd's Bush Interchange is located to the south of the centre next to the Overground station and includes a bus station and a taxi rank. Close to Wood Lane tube station is the

on Ariel Way. The red brick, Grade II listed Dimco Buildings, which were originally built in 1898 as an electricity generating station for the

Central London Railway The Central London Railway (CLR), also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railwayA "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a cylindrical tunnel by the use of a tunnelling shield, usually deep below g ...

, was used to stable buses as the current White City bus station. The Dimco buildings were used as a filming location for the ‘Acme Factory’ in the 1988 film ''

Who Framed Roger Rabbit ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and loosely adapted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman from Gary K. Wolf's 19 ...

'' *Cycle improvements: The development includes four new cycle routes, as well as 570 cycle parking spaces. However, advocates consider the new cycle routes woefully inadequate. *Road links: A grade-separated junction connects to the

( A3220), which runs alongside the development site.

Impact and criticism

Beofre opening, the centre was expected to attract trade that otherwise might have gone to the already busy West End, as well as having a potentially negative impact on nearby Kensington High Street. The development has also pushed up rents in the Shepherds Bush area, which is expected to impact on the value retail offer in the area, with many businesses as well as the Shepherds Bush Market expected to suffer. Others have criticised the centre's "clone stores".

References

External links

Official website

White City Development leaflet
(Transport for London, August 2007)
"New White City travel connections"
(Transport for London, September 2008)
White City & Shepherd's Bush
description and map of transport developments
Planned development
{{coord, 51, 30, 27, N, 0, 13, 16, W, type:landmark, display=title

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Retail buildings in London Shopping centres in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Shopping malls established in 2008 Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham White City, London 2008 establishments in England