The Liberty, formally named The Liberty Shopping Centre, is a covered

shopping centre A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

Romford Romford is a large List of places in London, town in east London, east London, England, located northeast of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Havering, the town is one of the major Metropolitan centres of London, metropolitan centr ...

, London, England, the largest such centre in the town. It was originally built in 1968 and underwent a four-year redevelopment completed in 2003. The centre takes its name from the former

Liberty of Havering Havering, also known as Havering-atte-Bower, was a royal manor and ancient liberty whose area now forms part of, and gives its name to, the London Borough of Havering in Greater London. The manor was in the possession of the Crown from the 11th t ...

and is owned by the Cosgrave Property Group. It is also the largest indoor shopping centre in the borough of

Havering The London Borough of Havering () in East London, England, forms part of Outer London. It has a population of 259,552 inhabitants; the principal town is Romford, while other communities include Hornchurch, Upminster, Collier Row and Rainham, Lo ...

overall and covers of retail space, around 100 shops. The Liberty has an annual footfall of 23 million, equating to 425,000 people per week. It is linked to The Mercury Mall (formerly known as Liberty 2) by an underpass.

History

The Liberty Shopping Centre was first opened in 1968 in a joint deal between

Hammerson Hammerson PLC is a major British property development and investment company. The firm switched to real estate investment trust (REIT) status when they were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is listed on the London Stock Excha ...

and Standard Life Investments. In 1999

acquired Standards Life's 50% interest for £53 million and in 2000 acquired the freehold on the land. In September 2006, Irish property developers, The Cosgrave Property Group acquired the centre from

for £281 million. The centre underwent an extensive redevelopment which was completed in 2003 at a cost of £52 million. Previously, the main part of the centre was open-air, with several covered arcades running off from it linking it to other parts of the town centre. The changes undertaken in the 2000s included the covering of the main part of the centre with a glazed

roof A roof (: roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of tempera ...

, and the development of a new car parking facility, plus new large stores for

Next NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...

and H&M. Several existing stores were remodelled or relocated, or received other modernisations, as part of the redesign, including

Boots A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearl ...

, BHS and

W H Smith WH Smith plc, trading as WHSmith (also written WH Smith and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son), is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service st ...

. Once the planning application had been granted for the transformation of the centre, work started in August 2001. In April 2003, the centre achieved practical completion.

References

External links

Official web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberty Shopping centres in the London Borough of Havering Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Havering Shopping malls established in 1968 Romford