Those Harvey Nicks rumours again...

What's most interesting about yesterday’s 'revelations' about Harvey Nichols being in talks about coming to Nottingham is not the fact that they're thinking of coming here.
To blow the Evening Post's own trumpet, we reported that on 25th October last year – and it wasn't the first story we’d carried about it, either.
No, the most significant point in the latest story (detailed here)lies in the suggestion that they hope to be here by 2012 or 2013.
What's so significant about that? It may well give us an indication of the timescale for the wider redevelopment of Broadmarsh.
We've been waiting years for signs that those ambitious artist's impressions would be transformed into physical reality, but despite the issuing of Compulsory Purchase Orders Broadmarsh owner Westfield has declined to commit to a start date.
The uncertainty has been amplified by worries that the recession will have relegated a £400m plus project to the backburner.
But here we have some evidence of what could be decisive commercial momentum behind the scheme.
Harvey Nichols is the big name that the project needs to act as a magnet for other retailers to commit to taking space in the redeveloped centre. When you put them together with the existing commitments from Marks and Spencer and Debenhams you are already seeing the emergence of something big and ambitious.
However, if Harvey Nicks does come to Nottingham – and the reports suggest they are negotiating now on detail rather than principle – it doesn't necessarily mean that Broadmarsh will be redeveloped in one job lot.
It could well be that the centre will be redeveloped in sections, with the area earmarked for Harvey Nichols being done first.
The rest would follow as sufficient commercial momentum develops, which will depend how quickly we start to emerge from recession.
If Harvey Nichols does open in the city it will represent yet more evidence of Nottingham's national standing as a retail location, and represents the culmination of years of efforts.
Those efforts shouldn't stop there. The city has also been trying to lure the likes of Betty's of Harrogate beyond its Yorkshire heartland. Land a catch like that and Nottingham would really be able to have its Fat Rascal and eat it.