Bhs stages exit from Broadway

                      Department store chain Bhs has pulled out of five-year-old plans to anchor a West Yorkshire shopping centre.   The chain, owned by billionaire Sir Philip Green, has cancelled plans to take 40,000 sq ft in Westfield’s 588,000 sq ft Broadway, following a review of its operations. A spokesman for Bhs said: “We have had a review of strategic planning this year and decided to pull out of Bradford.”   However, a local agent claimed that it was the slow progress of the development, first proposed in 1998, that had caused Bhs to walk away from the letting.   “Bhs got fed up with the lack of commitment from the developer,” he said. “It is going to be at least five years until the centre opens, which is too late to wait in the current market, especially with the extra competition provided by the two shopping centres due to open in Leeds.”   Others claimed that poor trading at Bhs over the Christmas period had led to the decision.   A spokesman for Westfield said: “Bhs has made a commercial decision and this allows us to reconfigure the retail units within the scheme to offer a bigger store to a different retailer.”   Debenhams has agreed to be the main anchor with a 117,000 sq ft store in the £340m scheme, while Marks & Spencer has signed for 80,000 sq ft.   Bhs was the first retailer to commit to the long-mooted shopping centre. It agreed a deal in 2003 with the then-developer Stannifer.   The decision not to be one of Broadway’s three anchors means that Bhs has just two new stores, totalling 77,000 sq ft, in its pipeline.   joanne.payne@rbi.co.uk