Rioting and looting left cars burned, stores in shambles and windows shattered over a roughly 10-block radius of the city’s main shopping area.
Now Police say there is no danger and shoppers can enjoy shopping in shopping centre’s once again.
Shopping centres are being closed by police.
Shops in Westfield, Bromley, Balham, East Ham, Hackney, Farringdon, Kingston, Wimbledon, Clapham Common, Ealing and Wandsworth are believed to be closing early as London prepares for a fourth night of violence. The Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth and Centre Court Shopping Centre in Wimbledon have already shut.
London has already suffered three nights of riots, spreading all across the capital following the death of a man shot by police in Tottenham.
Westfield shopping centre
Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush is noted for its size: with a retail floor area of 150,000m² the equivalent of about 30 football pitches. It is said to be London’s largest shopping centre (overtaking the Centrale in Croydon), the third largest shopping centre in the United Kingdom (behind MetroCentre and Bluewater), and the largest urban area indoor shopping centre in Europe (as distinct from out-of-town centres).
Cabot Circus, Bristol
Cabot Circus is a shopping mall in Bristol. It is located next to Broadmead, the main shopping district in Bristol city centre. The Cabot Circus development area contains shops, offices, a cinema, hotel and 250 apartments. It covers a total of 139,350 m2 floor space, of which 92,900 m2 is retail outlets and leisure facilities. It opened in September 2008, after a ten year planning and building project costing £500 million. The original chosen name ‘Merchants Quarter’ came under criticism due to its associations to the slave trade. The name of Cabot was chosen following a public vote taken in November 2007, and commemorates John Cabot, an Italian explorer who is closely associated with Bristol.
Bull Ring, Birmingham
The Bull Ring is a major commercial area of Birmingham. It has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. It has been developed into a shopping centre twice; first in the 1960s, and then in the 2000s. The current shopping centre is the busiest in the United Kingdom with 36.5 million visitors in 2004, and is also the eleventh largest. It houses one of only four Selfridges department stores and the largest Debenhams outside of London. Consequently, the centre has been a huge success, attracting custom from all over the world, including New York.
Bluewater Shopping Centre
Bluewater is a super-regional shopping centre, opened on 16 March 1999. It is located at Greenhithe in the borough of Dartford, near the M25 motorway in northwest Kent, England. It is owned by four major UK institutions. The centre is on a 240-acre plot in a former chalk quarry. It has a sales floor area of 154,000 min two levels, making it the second largest shopping centre in the UK after Gateshead’s MetroCentre. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 13-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 and serves over 27 million visitors a year.
A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre and retail park some 9 miles away in West Thurrock, Essex.
Brent Cross shopping centre
The Brent Cross shopping centre was the first experiment in this style of shopping experience in the UK when it opened at Brent Cross in 1976 and it was initially constructed in an I shape parallel to the North Circular Road, with the two largest stores placed at either end. Suffering later from a rather dated look, subsequent expansion started in 1995 and saw the open parking areas to the north replaced by further shops, mid-market restaurants and multi-storey parking giving the present inverted T shape.
The original malls still retain a 1970s look, even though the shops have been modernised over the years. Despite its small size, the shopping centre has one of the largest incomes per unit area of retail space in the UK.