Australia top of the shops for Westfield but no significant advances at Bradford

The Australian group, which has yet to resume development at its 320m shopping centre planned for the heart of Bradford, reported earnings slightly ahead of forecasts.

Australia, its biggest market, continued to be resilient, offsetting slack overseas markets.

"The majority of the development work that we have going forward at the moment is concentrated on Australia because there is strong demand from retailers," said Peter Lowy, Westfield's co-group managing director.

"When you look at US and UK, the demand from retailers while it was stronger than last year, is not exactly at the point where we think we should be starting much larger development."

Westfield, operator of 119 shopping centres in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the UK, reiterated its plan to start new shopping centre developments, worth A$500m to A$1bn, every year.

Westfield said it continues "pre-development work" on the Bradford project, which is eventually due to create 110 shops and 1,800 car-park spaces. An "urban garden" was recently opened on the site of the stalled project.

Alongside with a shopping centre planned for Nottingham, Westfield has identified A$10bn (5.8bn) of future development opportunities globally. The company had as of June A$7.3bn (4.2bn) available including debt facilities and cash.

The group reported a 2.6 per cent fall in operating earnings to A$1.03bn (593m) for the six months to the end of June.

Steven Lowy, the group's other group managing director, said the Australian market remained robust.

"Fundamentally, the business in Australia is very strong with continued demand for space, excellent sales productivity and solid rental growth," he said.

At June 30, the group had assets under management of A$61.7bn (35.8bn), total assets of A$50.4bn (29.2bn), and a gearing ratio of 37.4 per cent.

Westfield's A$1.2bn new centre in Sydney is due to open in late 2010, while its A$2.6bn (1.45bn) Stratford City centre near the east London 2012 Olympic stadium is on track to open in September 2011. About 70 per cent of the Olympic centre is leased or committed.

The group said its UK portfolio, which includes the Westfield London centre, Europe's largest urban shopping centre, was 98.8 per cent leased.

Sales at the centre in west London were up 16.8 per cent on a like-for-like basis, and the centre is due to achieve sales of more than 800m this year.

Westfield Bradford will be a mixed-use regeneration project providing a shopping centre, office space as well as residential apartments. Three themed malls trading over two levels will provide 110 shops, anchored by a 10,900 square metre Debenhams department store and a 6,970 square metre Marks & Spencer store. Westfield said site preparation work started in early 2008.