IT PROMISED restaurants, major new shops, a hotel and a luxury cinema.

But today £100m plans for an extension to Southampton’s WestQuay shopping centre lie in tatters, the latest victim of the recession.

In a massive blow to a city council already reeling from a succession of major development collapses, bosses of the property giant behind plans for Watermark WestQuay have revealed work is on hold until the economy picks up.The statement that “main works on site are unlikely to commence before an improvement in economic conditions” throws the future of the entire city centre into disarray.

What the scheme entailed - click here

WestQuay shopping centre owner Hammerson said it was not possible to predict when conditions would be right for the flagship project again.

The difficulties echo those encountered by a rival £500m development in Portsmouth called the Northern Quarter, which has also been put on hold indefinitely.

Hammerson has problems of its own and yesterday announced plans to raise nearly £600m from investors in a bid to tackle a £3bn debt mountain. The company has also seen profits of £110m in 2007 crumble into massive £1.6bn losses for 2008.

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Widely viewed as the most recession-proof of the proposals for Southampton’s skyline, Watermark today joins an ever-lengthening list of problem projects.

Already plans for the Arts Quarter in the city centre have been hit by the collapse of developer City Lofts, while Wilson Bowden pulled the plug on building at Admiral’s Quay in Ocean Village and put the site up for sale.Work on flats at Royal Crescent by developer Inner Circle has also been halted by the economic slowdown, as have MDL Marina’s plans for a four-star hotel in Ocean Village.

At the end of January this year, a scheme for 550 homes on the former Meridian TV site in Northam hit the buffers when developer Oakdene fell into administration.

The project WILL go ahead - click here

David Atkins, managing director of Hammerson UK was adamant Watermark was not dead and said they would continue with the planning and designing work.

“I can’t believe anyone is surprised by this,” he said. “This environment is worse than we thought it would be and we are in the thick of it. Until we see some changes in the retail environment we cannot commit.

“Development is a complex process that takes many years to come about.

We are still at the planning stage. The next one is to ensure that we have enough retail tenants and anchor tenants interested and we have ongoing discussions with them so we were not in a position to push the button on this scheme anyway. If we don’t get the retail interest then we wouldn’t go ahead anyway.”