In its 30^th anniversary year, retail consultancy Trevor Wood Associates has published its most comprehensive research to date into the UK’s shopping centre market. The 314-page report, which will be available from December, ranks all shopping centres over 50,000 sq ft by their overall attractiveness to shoppers, retailers and investors. Information on the 741 schemes was converted into points for features including tenants, lettable area, weekly footfall and facilities.

Keith Shiells, head of office at Lambert Smith Hampton, said: “We are delighted to have been ranked as the top retail letting agent and managing agent in Northern Ireland for the seventh consecutive year.  With 90 employees we have the largest property team in Northern Ireland and have experienced exponential growth in 2017. This success has been driven by our people and we are pleased that they have gained this recognition in the Going Shopping 2018 report.” 

Within Northern Ireland, the leading shopping centre is still Victoria Square. CastleCourt and Foyleside Shopping Centre also retained their positions of second and third while Abbeycentre returned to fourth following an extension with an increase in points and Rushmere Shopping Centre drops to fifth.

Tristan Capital Partners, owners of Bloomfield Shopping Centre, are now the leading investment manager in Northern Ireland. HJS and Commerz Real both moved up a spot. Wirefox appear in fourth following their purchase of CastleCourt in July and NewRiver REIT are now fifth following the extension (and resulting points increase) at the Abbeycentre.