Dampened down by recession, will punters turn away from two new shopping meccas?

NO ONE IN their right mind would choose to open Europe’s largest urban shopping centre in a deprived area of east London just when the economy is teetering on the brink of renewed recession.

But when Westfield Stratford City was on the drawing board, the future looked a lot brighter for Britain in 2011 – and in 2012, the year the Olympics come to London.

Crowds flocked to the opening of the new £1.4 billion shopping centre in Stratford yesterday but it was more for the launch-day giveaways, the celebrity appearances or the chance to have their photos taken with the Olympic Torch rather than to spend money many of them do not have.

Westfield, with more than 300 shops and 70 bars and restaurants, is uniquely linked with the 2012 games.

The centre acts as a gateway to the Olympic Park and some 70 per cent of the spectators will pass through it on their way to the events, which will be shown on giant screens throughout the complex.

The potential of the games and the free-spending tourists they will attract has ensured a good start for the massive 1.9 million square foot shopping complex, which managed to let 95 per cent of its retail space in time for the launch, anchored by top-quality tenants such as Marks Spencer, John Lewis and Waitrose.

For John Lewis, the four-storey Stratford store is the first it has opened in London in 20 years, while MS’s shop is its third-largest in the UK and one that will showcase the new look being rolled out by chief executive Marc Bolland as part of the retailer’s latest £600 million revamp.

There is no doubting the boost that Westfield has brought to Stratford – the complex employs 10,000 people in retail jobs, many of whom were previously long-term unemployed.

As well as the shops, bars and restaurants, there are three hotels, a 17-screen cinema and a 14-lane bowling alley. A casino, the largest in the country, will also be open at Westfield by the end of the year.

But with one in seven high street stores boarded up across Britain, and with household incomes squeezed as never before, what are the prospects for Westfield once the Olympics are over?

The Australian owners of the complex are confident it will ride the recession and there’s little doubt that it will take a sizeable chunk of trade away from local high streets and malls in surrounding east London.

It is also likely to pull shoppers away from older, out-of-town centres such as Lakeside in Thurrock, some 14 miles further east, or from the underground Canary Wharf shopping complex in the docklands financial district.

Westfield’s owners do have some basis for their confidence, as their other centre in the capital, Shepherd’s Bush in west London, also opened at an inauspicious point in the economic cycle – autumn 2008, just as Britain entered the longest, deepest recession since the war.

Despite the severity of the downturn, retailers are said to be queuing up for space at the fully-let centre in the west, where sales are set to break through the £1 billion mark this year.

East London lacks some of the advantages of west London, however. There is no doubt that Stratford is a far more deprived area and, while the forthcoming Olympics have ensured huge improvements to transport links in the east, its congested road network remains a travel nightmare.

Shepherd’s Bush has defied the doomsayers over the past three years, however, and Westfield will be hoping its even larger retail temple to the east will do the same.

Stratford is not the only area of east London enjoying a retail overhaul – Waitrose has just lavished £15 million on a complete overhaul of its store in Canary Wharf, home to many of Britain’s bankers.

The Canary Wharf branch is Waitrose’s busiest, attracting as many as 80,000 customers a week.

Its range has been tailored to those still enjoying the lucrative salaries and bonuses in the financial sector – fine wines at £500 a bottle, a steak-and-oyster bar and designer clothing labels including Barbour, Osprey and Radley.

It’s an expensive refit for Waitrose but one the retailer feels confident will pay dividends, particularly as the working population of Canary Wharf is set to rise from its current 90,000 to 120,000 in the next few years.

And with the Vickers report on reform of the banking industry, published on Monday, having largely left the industry unscathed, certainly until 2019, there’s little doubt the bankers will be able to afford their £500 bottles of wine for many years to come.

Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardian newspaper in London