Opening date 1968 No. of anchor tenants 7 | No. of stores and services 100 | |
Location London Borough of Havering, England Owner Cosgrave Property Group Total retail floor area 730,000 square metres (7,900,000 sq ft) | ||
The Liberty is a covered shopping centre located in the London Borough of Havering. It is the largest shopping centre in Romford. It was originally built in 1968 as the Liberty Shopping Centre and underwent a four-year redevelopment completed in 2004. The centre takes its name from the former Liberty of Havering and is owned by the Cosgrave Property Group. It is the largest indoor shopping centre in the borough and covers 730,000 square metres (7,900,000 sq ft) with 36,400 square metres (392,000 sq ft) 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 Mercury Shopping Centre (formerly Liberty 2) by an underpass.
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History
The Liberty was first built in 1968. In 1999 Hammerson acquired Standards Life's 50% interest and in 2000 acquired the freehold on the land. In September 2006, Irish property developers, The Cosgrave Property Group acquired the centre from Hammerson.
2001-2004 redevelopment
The centre underwent an extensive redevelopment at the turn of the millennium. 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, and the development of a new car parking facility, plus new large stores for Next and H&M. Several existing stores were remodelled or relocated, or received other modernisations, as part of the redesign, including Boots, BHS and W H Smith.
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.
Tenants
The Liberty is anchored by Boots, Debenhams, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Next, W H Smith and Primark.
Accessibility
The Liberty is near to Romford railway station and is on the route of a number of London Buses services. There are 806 secure parking spaces.