CBRE has hailed the “largest development surge in a generation” as new shopping-centre schemes are restarted following a freeze.

The upbeat sentiment comes despite the pipeline of developments standing at a 10-year low of 48.67m sq ft since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. But CBRE said development activity in London and the South East had started to lift markedly about a year ago and major metropolitan centres were also now seeing signs of recovery. Projects in Glasgow, Oxford, Bracknell, Bradford and Leeds look set to get off the ground. Some 40% of new shopping-centre projects are in London.