Last month, Trafford Centre operations director Gordon McKinnon stoked the fires of controversy over Sunday trading once again. Where does the debate stand now?

Jonathan Doughty serves up his regular shopping centre foodservice review. This month he visits Piazza by Anthony in the Corn Exchange, Leeds.

On the back of sharply increased turnover in the UK, Deichmann Shoes has announced plans to open ten UK stores in 2010, twice the number it opened in 2009.

Gordon McKinnon, director of operations at Manchester's Trafford Centre, questions the relevance of Sunday Trading laws when retailers need all the sales they can get.

Retailers are losing out on customer loyalty by using complicated and unclear returns policies for goods bought online.

Despite the spate of retailer administrations, the number of shop branches run by multiples in the UK continues to grow, according to new research from CBRE.

Coverpoint's Jonathan Doughty serves up his monthly shopping centre catering review. This month he visits Napoli in the new Eat Central at Westfield Merry Hill.

thecentre:mk’s new restaurant quarter, Destination Dining, is now fully let as Carluccio’s and Yo Sushi take the remaining 9,000 sq ft.

On the back of sharply increased turnover in the UK, Deichmann Shoes has announced plans to open 10 UK stores in 2010, twice the number it opened in 2009.

The number of pound shops on the UK’s high streets has almost doubled in the last 10 years, reflecting the broadening appeal of budget shopping, according to new research from Experian.

The global recession has barely dented the pace of growth at the sandwich franchise business Subway, according to head of real estate John Devine.

Land Securities, through its subsidiary Brand Empire, has struck a deal with the Spanish fashion giant Grupo Cortefiel to bring three of its core brands to the UK.

Domino's Pizza has increased its store openings target for 2010 to 55 per year after unveiling sharply increased profits.

The £995m purchase of Pets at Home by private equity investor Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is expected to lead to a new wave of store openings by the pet retailer.

An impending ‘oil crunch’ threatens the retail sector with rising costs of production and higher prices for consumers, according to an industry taskforce.

Discount clothing chain Ethel Austin and its sister firm Au Naturale went into administration today, putting over 3,700 jobs at risk.

Multi-brand fashion retailer Republic has announced plans to open a further 12 stores in 2010, including a strategic move into the Irish market, as part of a strategy to double turnover in the next three years.

Jonathan Doughty serves up his monthly shopping centre catering review. This month he visits Aiso at MyZeil in Frankfurt.

QS was once a Marks & Spencer manufacturer that sold surplus stock and seconds under the Quality Seconds fascia. But by the 1990s retailing had become its main activity with a nationwide portfolio trading from mainly secondary locations.

Blacks Leisure, the specialist retailer in outdoor clothing and equipment, has announced plans to expand despite recently shedding a number of loss-making stores.

Westfield’s £24m foodcourt development opened on 22 October at Merry Hill shopping centre in the West Midlands. Eat Central boasts a range of national and international retailers including Nandos, Pizza Express and Napoli, and has created 200 permanent jobs in the area.

The Oracle in Reading celebrated its 10^th anniversary at the end of September 2009. In those 10 years, it has established itself and Reading as the regional shopping and leisure destination in the Thames Valley. Its design and configuration has enabled it to become the heart of Reading City Centre, with its linkage to Broad Street, and the clustering of substantial food and leisure on both sides of the River Kennet.

Coverpoint’s Jonathan Doughty serves up his regular shopping centre catering review. This month he visits Memsaab at Highcross Leicester

Coverpoint’s Jonathan Doughty serves up his regular shopping centre catering review. This month he visits Chaophraya at Liverpool One.

Coverpoint’s Jonathan Doughty serves up his regular shopping centre catering review. This month he visits Patisserie Valerie at the Mall at Cribbs Causeway.

Manchester’s Lowry outlet mall has reported an 8 per cent rise in footfall and a 7 per cent rise in like-for-like sales in the year to May 2009. Centre manager Robert Hallworth said: “The Lowry Outlet Mall has performed way above expectations for May. The success has been down to strong, targeted marketing to really drive footfall as well as adding another great brand – Bella Italia – to our offering.”

This month, Coverpoint's Jonathan Doughty visits the new St Pancras Grand brasserie at London’s St Pancras International station.

Coverpoint’s Jonathan Doughty serves up his regular shopping centre foodservice review. This month he visits the Meat & Wine Co at Westfield London.

For years Bristol city centre has languished behind other cities in the UK, but with the opening of Cabot Circus, The Bristol Alliance has, at a stroke, created a vibrant and compelling retail and foodservice heart to the city.

As ever we aim to bring you up to the minute news, and this month Food Feedback comes from Leicester. On 4 September 2008, Highcross opened and the Showcase Cinema De Lux also previewed its new offer to the city.

Whiteleys has seen numerous changes over the last 20 years, since the building opened as a shopping centre in 1989, not least the foodservice offer. The last year has seen the opening of Rowley Leigh's acclaimed Le Café Anglais at Level 2 of the centre, in addition to the existing offers including Yo! Sushi, Café Rouge, ASK and Bella Italia, all supporting, and supported by, the Odeon cinema.

Located in the heart of Essen, Germany, the first phase of the Limbecker Platz shopping centre opened its doors in March, providing over 100 retail and foodservice units in a three-storey covered mall. Phase 2 of the development, due for completion in autumn 2009, will see the number of stores doubled, and will take the GLA to over 70,000 sq m once fully open.

With success in Asia and the United States under its belt, Japanese-owned specialist bakery franchise Beard Papa is set to take the UK by storm.

With its stylish and sophisticated boulevard, acres of glazing, exposed brickwork and quality mix of retail and foodservice offers, thoughts of the Victoria Quarter, Leeds or Hays Galleria come to mind. It's only the departure signs for Paris Nord and Brussels that confirm that this is St Pancras International, the new multi-million pound home to Eurostar. And what a home it is!

Having started life on the high street, Giraffe decided a couple of years ago to bring its family-friendly restaurant concept to the shopping centre environment. But instead of replicating its high-street menu, the restaurant chain has enjoyed huge success with a menu designed specifically for fast-paced shopping centre clientele.

So it's fare thee well to all my loyal readers, Sid & Doris Bonkers.

For all the talk of hoody bans, young teenagers are an important demographic for shopping centres, not only because this is the age when they first shop on their own, and form preferences that can last a lifetime, but because they can influence where a family chooses to shop.

Spring signals the start of a pipeline of new shopping centres due to open in 2008. One of these, Eden in High Wycombe, is an 850,000-sq ft development encompassing the existing Octagon shopping centre, and is anchored by Marks & Spencer and House of Fraser. The Multiplex development, officially opened in March 2008, is not yet fully open, with some tenants still fitting out.

A decade ago the idea of going out to dinner at your local shopping centre would have been both unappetising and an impossibility, considering most centres offered a food court set-up which closed by 6pm.

Terminal 5 has only been open for two weeks and has received more publicity than either British Airways or BAA could have possibly imagined, sadly, none of it positive.

On a recent trip into Leeds, in between meetings, I was in need of something quick, healthy and most of all different, so I stopped by Bagel Nash in The Light. The Light is a leisure and fashion destination in Leeds city centre, and its foodservice combines national brands such as Browns, Nandos and Starbucks with local brands such as Brio, Maxi's and Bagel Nash. It is typical of modern developer thinking to incorporate a local flavour into the foodservice mix as a way of avoiding fascia fatigue.

Westfield has unveiled the first signings in what will ultimately be a collection of over 50 food operators within the £1.6bn Westfield London development which opens later this year.

Crest Nicholson Regeneration and Standard Life Investments have let two more units at The Atrium, their £130m mixed-use development in Camberley, Surrey.