The rate of new shopping centre space development in Europe slowed considerably in 2009, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s (C&W) latest European Shopping Centre Development report, and it is unlikely that development levels will pick up before 2012 at the earliest.

Last year saw the sharpest decline in the amount of new space that opened in 15 years, with around 7.4m sqm of new shopping centre space completed, a -19% fall on 2008. However, should the European economy bounce back quicker than expected, C&W said that a large number of shelved shopping centre projects could be revived relatively quickly, boosting the development pipeline.

Russia with some 2.5m sqm of space in development and scheduled to open by the end of 2011 overtook Turkey to top the European ranking of shopping centres under construction.

Italy , France and the Netherlands are currently the most positive markets in Western Europe. The Italian market has been specifically resilient with just around 20% of its 2010-2015 pipeline so far being put on hold and it currently has just over 1m sqm of new space under construction. Development activity has also increased significantly in France with around 880,000sqm of space currently under construction.

During 2009, France also moved into the top five of the new shopping centre completions table, with around 530,000sqm delivered. The Netherlands also experienced a high level of completions during the year with more than double the ten-year average completed over the year.

Stratford City, London, is Europe’s largest shopping centre under construction at 186,500sqm and is due to open in 2011.