As BCSC president Martyn Chase rightly points out, the downturn has pushed management back up the industry's agenda, so it was good to see such a good number of owners alongside managers there.

The Manchester event, coupled with the trifling matter of seeing a magazine to press, meant I was unable to be in Belfast for the opening of Victoria Square. And by all accounts I missed a great party.

Rarely can a shopping centre have opened with such a weight of expectations resting on it. The fact that not one, not two, but three ministers turned out for the opening ceremony shows how much the powers that be have invested in Victoria Square as a highly visible symbol of Belfast's renaissance, opening almost 10 years to the day after the Good Friday Agreement.

Architectural and political commentators alike have compared it to Berlin's Potzdamer Platz project which physically symbolised the reunification of a city. That may be stretching a point, but it's undoubtedly a very significant step forward for Northern Ireland.

What's important, though, is that once the hype dies down the people of Belfast don't just see it as a symbol, but as a fantastic place to shop, eat and, for some, to live.

News spread quickly at the Manchester conference of the sudden death of Land Securities' head of retail development Peter Cleary.

I'd like to remember Peter as I last saw him, at the BCSC dinner in December, as he strode up to the stage, a broad grin on his face, to collect the supreme gold award for his Princesshay scheme in Exeter.

He was one of the most thoughtful and articulate men in property, well capable of expressing why shopping centres are about more than mere commerce. Victoria Square is the sort of place Peter would have greatly appreciated.

Graham Parker, Editor

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