Bad planning

You have 64 quarters of economic growth in which to open your mega-mall and then choose to open in the quarter when recession is likely to be confirmed... such is the fate of the vast new shopping centre at Shepherds Bush which I, along with most of West London visited on Saturday. As others have already commented, it already seems like a temple to a bygone age - so early 2000s - and an odd juxtaposition with Fiona Reynolds calling for people to reconnect with their simpler, non-consumerist selves on the radio that morning - by visiting the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy of an earlier age.

But good to know that, in a corner of W12 there is a place where, with no need to take more than five steps, you can buy Gucci, Prada, stock up with diamonds at Tiffany's (or is that a breakfast place). Notable that there were a lot of people in cafés; long lines to buy England shirts at £ 3.49 at Sports Direct (90% off - get donw there fast) - but not a single high end bag to be seen in the sticky paw of any of the thronging masses.

So is this completely misconceived? Quite possibly. Though once you have made it through the offputting designer village for people valet parking their Porsches and SUVs, there are some more normal stores where the tills may some day ring. And compared to Oxford Street, with about half the number of people, there would be more space to move about and no need to dodge between the lines of buses to get from one row to another. Time will tell whether this becomes a monumental folly. The verdict of a non-random sample at the tennis club in Sunday afternoon was that all had been and none would go back - to which I was the only possible exception (but at my rate of spend that won't make a decent return on £1.6bn this side of the next millennium).

But if not misconceived, it is stunningly badly planned. Not just because the tube station dumps you out by the bus station - not into the mall (the whole point is surely to avoid any risk of exposure to fresh air). Not just because the escalators inside the mall can't cope with people wanting to go both up and down. Not just that the refurbished Shepherds Bush tube has nice white tiles, but seems to have no increased access to cope with - duh - Monroe people. Not just because nothing has been done to make traffic move around Shepherds Bush green. Will any of the people who flocked there on Saturday to then be held in a queue outside the tube station closed for congestion in pouring rain - and who then could not get a bus either - ever bother to make it back?

Of course Saturday was exceptional. It was new. It was horrible weather. But there seems to be a complete mismatch between the assumptions on which Westfield was built -- vast numbers of people arriving from all over London - and the ability of the transport system to plan on anything like a comparable basis. But you wait 11 years for a mega-mall to be built (reassuring that these people are building the shopping mall for the Olympic village) and then you spend two hours in the rain trying to get away from it.

But that is not the only problem with the development... it is literally all shops and a few restaurants. No homes. No offices.

In short it is a monument to American suburban planning. Giant mall; inadequate public transport; single use. Disconnected from the local community. A potential blight on other local high streets. Jane Jacobs would be turning in her grave....