The property industry's Jeremiahs are just waiting for a major new centre to fail. But if John Irvine, Grosvenor's executive director responsible for development outside London, is feeling the pressure, it isn't showing. "We don't see supply being a problem" he asserts. "As we came out of Christmas we had 40-odd deals on the two projects in solicitors' hands and there's been no sign of retailers pulling out."

However, he's careful to manage expectations. "For us it's about focusing on the space we've still got to let," he says. "We're not targeting 100 per cent pre-lettings. Post-opening, when the public are flooding into the scheme, it can be a good thing to have a few units left."

In Cambridge, the 450,000- sq ft Grand Arcade will open on March 27. The 255,000-sq ft John Lewis anchor store opened in November and according to Irvine is "trading its socks off". The rest of the scheme consists of 52 shop units over two levels, as well as cafés, a restaurant, a new 950-space car park and a 500-space cycle park. "We expect to have 40 of the units done by opening day," forecasts Irvine.

And in a late flurry of deals, five fashion brands - LK Bennett, Fraser Hart, Swarovski, Warehouse and Phase Eight - have just signed up, taking 11,300 sq ft of space.

At more than three times the size of the Cambridge project, Liverpool One is, inevitably, a more complex proposition. The 1.4 million sq ft of retail space will open in two phases this year. On May 29 the main retail core of the scheme, including the main shopping axis between the new John Lewis store and the new Debenhams store on Lord Street will open. "We've got 50 out of the 70 units in this section done, and we'll have more by opening day," Irvine declares.

The remainder of the scheme opens on September 30 and Irvine forecasts: "We expect to be well over 90 per cent by then. Overall, two-thirds of the units at Liverpool One are let or in legals."

The massive scale of Liverpool One, and the fact that it had to be delivered as part of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture, presented some unique challenges, but Irvine is quick to praise his team. "It's been a fantastic delivery - it'll be ready on target which is amazing given that it's in the middle of a city."

A year ago Grosvenor had to book a £140m accounting provision on the project as construction cost spiralled. Irvine puts this down to the sheer complexity of the scheme, and the fact that because of its unusual deadline, critical decisions had to be made before detailed designs were in place. "We've changed our development control processes, so we manage our risk exposure with more attention to the size, scale and complexity of the challenges we face."

As Cambridge and Liverpool enter the home straight, Irvine's attention is turning to Grosvenor's next generation of schemes. And he's emphatic that the company intends to remain a player in shopping centre development. "Big retail property is something we've been doing for 40 years since Chester," he says. "We followed that with Lewisham, Northampton, Staines, Bolton and the Grafton Centre in Cambridge, and that accumulated expertise is something we expect to continue with. We're committed to city centre development."

Grosvenor has been selected as developer on schemes in Preston and Crawley. "They have similarities with Liverpool," says Irvine. "Both will be anchored by John Lewis with 90-odd units plus leisure and residential built around open streets. These are big schemes in anyone's books and between them they're another £1.5bn of development."

Add to that the small matter of a major extension to Liffey Valley in Dublin, which Grosvenor owns in partnership with Morley, and Grosvenor has a massive £2bn development programme.

The master plan for a 50-acre site adjoining the shopping centre will introduce a mix of uses, as well as taking the retail content from 450,000 to 750,000 sq ft. The Irish developer O'Callaghan Properties is Grosvenor's partner on this phase.

Irvine refutes allegations that Grosvenor has allowed the Preston project in particular to drift. "It's been all about getting the right anchor," he says. "There have been a few years' delay but we needed that time to do our research and convince John Lewis." The other significant move has been bringing Lend Lease in as development partner. "We had to consider how to move it forward, and we were attracted by the joint venture approach - as a company it's an approach we like," Irvine says. "The experience with Lend Lease has been very good. It's mutually beneficial and very much side-by side."

He expects a similar approach to emerge at Crawley. "The scheme's moving along but we're not under any pressure to make a funding decision there," he says. "The land acquisition is more complex and expensive, whereas Preston is primarily on the site of the massive old bus station."

Both schemes will require CPOs and Irvine expects the Preston inquiry to take place in the second half of this year, with Crawley following in the first half of 2009.

Irvine divides his time between Grosvenor's Mayfair headquarters and its Edinburgh office, where he has worked for the past 20 years. Long-distance commuting and a very hectic development programme might dominate his time but he has to find space for strategic thinking too.

One of his priorities is to find a way of evening out the lumpy cashflow from Grosvenor's development business.

"Outside the two big London estates we've perhaps become dominated by the massive schemes where you spend money for 10 years before you take a profit. That's not an ideal business model," he observes.

The solution is to build up a portfolio of smaller projects where Grosvenor will act as an old-fashioned trader developer. "The trading projects will be there to fill the gap between the big projects," he explains. "They'll be smaller lot sizes and probably mixed-use, with offices or residential alongside retail."

And he also sees other advantages to adopting such an approach, beyond the purely financial considerations.

"It will be an excellent opportunity to bring forward some of our younger surveyors," he says. "We take on five graduates a year and it'll be very helpful to be able to offer them a little more variety in terms of the development side."

Another source of new development business will be Grosvenor's asset management operation, which currently has five standing shopping centre investments under management. "Each of the centres has its own development opportunity and we have an arrangement to run the projects," Irvine explains. "We're recruiting a senior person to handle that right now."

First off the starting blocks will be a plan to double the size of the Dolphin Centre in Poole, with residential on one side of the site. "We want to create a destination that will attract shoppers from right across the conurbation," says Irvine. "It's a very wealthy catchment."

At Festival Place in Basingstoke there is potential to add more catering, even though the centre is barely five years old.

"Liverpool shows how catering has gone up the agenda," Irvine notes. "The property industry thinks it's led this trend, but in reality it's just been reacting to demand."

Equally Irvine is aware that Grosvenor's centres in Grimsby and Bolton have potential for medium-sized extensions. "The art is to keep these flowing through planning and CPOs," he says.

So regardless of whether 2008 turns out to be John Irvine's annus mirabilis or annus horibilis, he's already got his eyes on the future.

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