The West Quay shopping centre in Southampton is a prime example of a new wave of inner-city regional shopping centres in the UK-at the time of its opening being the largest centre of that type. This paper argues that West Quay has had a fundamental impact on the built form and urban identity of Southampton. Using detailed local research in order to reconstruct the story of the scheme, the paper demonstrates that the development which has taken place has been viewed by a Labour-controlled city council as strategically vital to the survival of the city as the south coast's leading regional centre. As such West Quay represents a prominent example of the shift in orientation in UK retail development and planning in the late 1990s towards a strongly urban regeneration-led focus, with cities like Southampton pioneering the link between retail and urban regeneration as a central component of a strategy focused on the development and promotion of successful places. In turn, the notion of such 'place building'-which has been at the heart of New Labour's urban policy agenda-has become entwined in current revisions of retail planning policy.
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