Great news ladies - Biggest mall in Europe

Biggest Mall in Europe opens in London!

And it allows single men, window shopping and free parking..................

My visit to Westfield London, reminded me of my walking holiday in the northern Indian state of Uttaranchal. You are traipsing along, you look up, and there are the Himalayas in front of you: awesome, daunting, huge.
The mall has 265 shops, 50 restaurants and 4,500 car parking spaces.

Inside, however, it is delightfully airy, curvy and luxurious. I liked that the mall intends to be very democratic and inclusive. This is the first one I can think of where the truly upmarket brands - the Pradas and the Diors - will rub shoulders (almost) with the downmarket ones.

You will be able to wander into the upmarket zone called the Village, housing Mulberry, Gucci and Versace, without feeling remotely intimidated, as you might do on Bond Street, say.

Groups of teenagers will be stopped and questioned only if they are causing trouble. Hoodies will not be banned, although wearers will be asked to keep them down.
Good ideas, too, include tags for children so that if they go missing they can be traced almost instantaneously (this system should be extended for use on husbands/boyfriends so that they don't disappear to browse in HMV for hours on end).

The car park has extra wide spaces for terrible drivers like me, who always get stuck, and special twinkly lights that lead mums with children to special slots near the lifts.

I love the fact there is valet parking for just £10, and that a little man will put your shopping in the boot of your car for you (very Rodeo Drive), that your car can be cleaned, that there are 770 free wi-fi points, and that, while shopping, your purchases can be taken off your hands and deposited at a central pick-up point (although this service is a rather steep £7.50).

Great, too, is the huge (almost the size of the pitch at Twickenham) atrium space, which will be used for fashion shows, concerts (this Thursday, as well as a speech by London mayor Boris Johnson, first-day shoppers will be treated to a performance by Leona Lewis), exhibitions and impromptu markets and fairs.

The people at Westfield have tried really hard to get it right. They have hired Mary Portas, of Mary Queen Of Shops fame, as both consultant and PR. They have hired cutting-edge designers, such as Softroom, who designed the Virgin Lounge at Heathrow and here have come up with a curvy, comfy area of informal dining called The Balcony.

The roof, like a giant aviary, is amazing, but it reminds me a little too much of Stansted Airport. Westfield has tried to make the building green - timber is from sustainable sources, 30 per cent of the roof is covered in a biodiversity material to encourage wildlife, there are charging docks for electric cars - but I wonder how an edifice that took enough concrete to fill 117 Olympic swimming pools can really be that eco-friendly.

Catwalk style: Fashion shows will be held at Westfield and shoppers will be able to buy clothes and accessories by the likes of Versace

The 14-screen cinema, which sounds fantastic - with small screens you can hire for parties, others where you can dine and watch a film at the same time - won't be ready until next year.

The upmarket village zone: As well as shops the centre will house a cinema and restaurants
But you can't help wonder at the impact such a monolith is having on local people. It took five years to build, and half a million visitors a week are expected - 40 per cent by car.

A local resident called Dan, who 'lives as close as it is possible to get' to Westfield, wrote in a blog last week: 'Westfield has shown little regard for residents by carrying out all-night working with no warning for weeks on end. . .

'We have tried endlessly to get them to tell us where shops that have applied for the late-night licences are, with no luck. And the sheer chaos caused by the closure of Wood Lane Tube station for months, and the inability of the council to do anything about it, left me and many other residents with little interest in Westfield.

The Mail