Eric Williams receives a retirement gift from BCSC chief executive Michael Green
Listen 'ere one last time
Published: 11 April, 2006
It was back in November 1991 that I penned my first hesitant editorial 'leader' for the launch issue of my baby into the unsuspecting world of shopping centres and retail parks. That editorial devolved (some might say 'degenerated') into Listen 'ere, a column that allowed me free rein to lambast, criticise, condemn and praise people and organisations.
Now, the party's over. It's time to call it a day and I am putting away my quill pen and retiring to a life of fishing, a bit of golf, even less of gardening, but certainly more of my beloved cricket.
We launched Shopping Centre in the depths of the deepest and most devastating recession ever seen in the retail property industry. A lot of the great and the good in our then-emergent shopping centre industry said we were stark raving bonkers to publish a magazine devoted to a subject that looked to be in decline.
It was a great leap of faith by William Reed Publishing to back my airy-fairy notions at that precarious time with a mixture of sound commercial sense, faith and a great deal of hard cash. Special thanks, therefore, must go to the Reed family and publishing/marketing director Tony De Angeli, who put the flesh on the bones of Shopping Centre.
In those early days, our aim was to present a monthly encapsulation of all the news and trends appertaining to our industry. It was geared, also, at improving the lot, status and overall perception of the centre manager, all too often seen as a caretaker, completely under the domination of the owner or, more correctly I think, of autocratic managing agents.
The much-feared managing agent was frequently, back in those darker ages, a young surveyor with little or no practical shopping centre experience who, once a smattering of experience had been gleaned, moved on.
The nervous 'caretaker' management style was succeeded by the 'man manager,' which favoured the ex-officer corps. I like to think that we played our part in ensuring that the next managerial generation had not only some knowledge of the sharp end of retailing, but were, also, people who were eminently capable of running large businesses, which is what centres are.
Hopefully, centre managers are of a much higher standard than in those not-too-far-off days when visionaries such as Clive Kaye, Arnold Wilcox-Wood and Brian Lucas led from the front in the education of the centre manager. Surely, the time is almost upon us when the boot will be on the other foot - when the centre manager will be responsible for hiring and firing those people and services that were once the purlieu of the managing surveyor.
I also like to think that Shopping Centre played its part in the 'democratisation' of the BCSC, helping to transform it from a cosy club for chartered surveyors into a well-led body that should, in time, represent the entire industry. And I know we promulgated one or two good ideas for industry events, some of which were hijacked by others who shall remain nameless.
Over the years, I have noticed with dismay that business ethics in the retail property industry are not what they might be, but, in today's avaricious business climate, our own industry is not alone in that. I have always believed that business should be fun and that any form of enterprise needs its measure of characters to lighten the day-to-day toil and sweat. Retail property has its share of comedians - unfortunately, too many of them unwittingly so!
Planning in this country is a part of the great joke. While I no longer believe that bulky brown envelopes play a major part in it, 'planning gain' still does and plays into the hands of vested interests. The industry must learn to resist the opportunities of quick profit, building without a second thought to infrastructure and the environment of this beautiful country.
Unfortunately, the current climate seems to be one of thuggery and terror: the day gets nearer, I'm afraid, when we are going to have a major incident at a shopping centre. Only recently, we have heard of threats to bomb Bluewater, a damned good centre: in my many travels around the UK, I can name many that would benefit from the odd stick of Semtex - provided there were no casualties, of course.
All I can say, finally, in this farewell to an industry I have grown to love, is to pay heartfelt tribute to my close colleagues, without whom Shopping Centre could not have prospered: to my first deputy editor, that bustling Yank Sean Kelly; to Patrick Morgan who succeeded me as editor when I took a small step back and whose resignation through ill health was more than a blow; to our ad manager Graham Harvey whose tenacity has kept me in gin and tonics over the years.
Last, but not least , to all those publishing, sales, admin and behind-the-scenes people who have supported our editorial efforts so well. They are friends more than just colleagues. I know you will continue to support our editor Graham Parker, whose knowledge of property and modern journalism (if not saloon bars) far outweighs mine.
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to have worked with you and for you over the years. I shall miss each and every one of you. The great advantage, now, is you don't have to be pleasant to me any more!
Fare well and, as Dave Allen always put it so succinctly, may your God go with you.
