Those Broadmarsh jitters explained

Does Westfield's announcement that it can't name a date for the start of work on a revamped Broadmarsh mean it's giving up on Nottingham?
And does a decision to look again at the design mean that even if it does go ahead it's going to be pretty small beer?
In a word, no.
Large-scale retailing is a simple numbers game: are there enough people with enough money living near enough to come and spend if you open a shop or build a shopping centre?
Putting aside the fact that we're at the rock bottom of an economic cycle, the answer to that question remains yes. Which is why all big shopping centres are in major cities or near major motorway junctions
Of course, you can't put aside that economic cycle because it's a particularly severe one. Which is why Westfield won't start laying £700m-worth of bricks until it's convinced we’re well and truly rid of recession.
It reckons we'll have cleared it in a couple of years, by which time investors and retailers will be confident enough to start signing up for a new Broadmarsh (or Westfield Nottingham as it will be known).
Once again, it's simple business arithmetic: retailers need to grow, to grow they need new outlets, new outlets need new space. QED.
Why is Westfield looking at the design again? Because the current plans date back years and retail has moved on. Recession will change it further as old retailers disappear and new names and trends emerge.
In an era when the best shopping deal is only a click away, there has to be something more than big names to attract shoppers and keep them.
There has to be somewhere exciting to eat, a sense of theatre about the location, and shops which other cities don't have. Retail experience, they call it.
So it's what happens both inside and outside the shops that Westfield will cast an eye on. It wants a design that could keep shoppers on site for hours.
But won't Nottingham fall behind while it waits for Broadmarsh to happen? To some extent – but the recession means there is zero chance that any big centres will be built anywhere near Nottingham.
So it may 'bleed' a few shoppers looking for a fresh experience elsewhere, but once that freshness has worn off we come back to which city still provides the best all-round experience – an area where Nottingham City Council must keep its eye on the ball.
And the flash stores like Harvey Nichols will not desert Nottingham for Derby or Leicester. Derby has its excellent new Westfield, Leicester has an eye-catching John Lewis.
Neither has the size, demographic momentum or national retail reputation of Nottingham.
It is sometimes easy in a recession to fixate on the latest piece of negative short-term sentiment and draw doom-laden conclusions.
A £700m development is a big, long-term bet and the economy needs to be heading in the right direction for it to happen. When it does we go back to that numbers analysis.
If Nottingham didn't make sense for Westfield then little else would. All things being equal, the numbers will – eventually - still stack up for Broadmarsh.