Spend, spend, spend says Boris as Westfield opens

Opening the £1.6 billion Westfield London shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush, he said shoppers needed to "invest in Christmas presents" as an antidote to the gloom.

His advice came as thousands of first-day visitors poured into the 43-acre complex to snap up bargains at the biggest urban mall in Europe.

Mr Johnson said they should not let money "silt up" in their bank accounts but spend it to beat the gloom.

The Mayor, who pledged to buy a new suit on his visit, said everyone was "popping the gloomadons" but said the new shopping centre was a reason to
be cheerful.

He said: "It is a wonderful vote of confidence in London — I am absolutely thrilled. The worst thing you can do is have a self-perpetuating cycle of gloom. Westfield is an investment in London's future that will continue to exist long after the recession has gone away.

"If anything can persuade the British public not to worry too much but to spend, it will be the Westfield shopping centre."

Three retail bosses, also at the opening, urged Londoners not to be downcast by the gloomy economic news. Topshop owner Sir Philip Green claimed his Arcadia group's latest sales figures are bucking the high street trend and would "surprise the pessimists".

Sir Philip, who attended the store opening of his rival Marks & Spencer, said: "It's not all doom and gloom. I've just got a text message with our latest figures. It's going to be a good week. It's half-term and the weather is cold, people are going to be in here shopping."

M&S chairman Sir Stuart Rose was similarly upbeat. "London is actually under-shopped for us. We'd like to extend our Oxford Street and Kensington stores, but there isn't the room. There will be some drop in footfall in central London, but we're confident there is scope for growth."

House of Fraser chief executive John King, said: "We've invested £150 million in improving our stores in the last two years. Our year to date figures show we're up 2.7 per cent on last year." The Mayor played down fears that the mall will take consumers away from nearby high streets. He said: "If anything it will bring a lot of people to the area and all the shops will benefit."

About 7,000 jobs have been created by the development, with 1,000 going to local people. The new Wood Lane Tube station which feeds the shopping centre is part of a public transport investment programme in the area that it is hoped will result in 60 per cent of visitors to the centre coming by bus or train.

The opening, with a performance by X-factor winner Leona Lewis, came after a battle against the clock to get the centre ready for launch. An army of labourers, store employees, cleaners and engineers worked through the night to meet the 9am deadline to transform a messy building site into a state-of-the-art shopping mall. Evidence of their scramble was visible, with heavy construction equipment left on the service roads surrounding the centre and blobs of dried concrete still visible by mid afternoon.

Shop staff told how plumbers charged £300 an hour to work through the night. Even so, staff in a beauty salon said they had to leave taps running all day today to stop the smell of sewage escaping the pipes. One early visitor described "a sea of humanity" filling the mall shortly after its 9am opening. "It is very, very crowded," he said.

About 250 shops and 30 restaurants start trading today, 85 per cent of the total. Michael Gutman, managing director of Westfield in Europe, denied that the deadline had been too ambitious. He said: "The mall looks fantastic, but there will always be teething issues we will have to deal with. We wanted to give retailers the best possible launch into Christmas."

Yasmin Le Bon cut the ribbon at House of Fraser while Twiggy and Erin O'Connor were special guests, joining Sir Stuart at M&S.