British Land : Appoints Scott Lahive as Centre Manager and Peter Townsend as Marketing Manager for Old Market, Hereford

British Land is pleased to announce the appointment of Scott Lahive as Centre Manager and Peter Townsend as Marketing Manager for the 305,000 sq ft Old Market, Hereford, which opened in May.

Scott has 20 years of retail experience having held the general manager position at The Brewery in Cheltenham in addition to roles at Tesco. He joins from the Willow Brook Centre in Bradley Stoke where he was the general manager from February 2006 and managed the set up and launch of the scheme, including two further phases of development.

Peter previously held the role of Marketing Manager at builders' merchant Robert Price Ltd and was responsible for the company's marketing strategy and spearheading its entry into social media. Prior to that Peter worked at Super Rod Ltd and managed his own business called Conch Marketing Communications.

Claire Barber, Head of Shopping Centre Asset Management for British Land, said: "Scott and Peter bring a wealth of experience and expertise and we are delighted to welcome them both to the team at Old Market. Old Market delivers a high quality retail and leisure experience for its affluent catchment."

The open air scheme, on the site of Hereford's former livestock market, comprises 18 retail units, seven restaurants and a six screen Odeon cinema. Debenhams anchors the scheme with a three storey, 84,000 sq ft department store, the only department store in Hereford. Waitrose has also opened a 22,000 sq ft store, a first for the city.  

Old Market is 96% by area to a range of retailers and leisure providers including H&M, Next, Fat Face, TK Maxx and Outfit as well as L'Occitane and Clarks. The line-up also includes Chimichanga, Costa, Frankie & Benny's, Miller & Carter, Nando's, Prezzo and Zizzi.

Old Market is owned by British Land and was developed by Stanhope.

Notes to Editors

About British Land
We are one of Europe's largest publicly listed real estate companies. We own, manage, develop and finance a portfolio of high quality commercial property, focused on retail locations around the UK and London Offices & Residential. We have total assets in the UK, owned or managed of £17.8 billion (British Land share of which is £12.0 billion), as valued at 31 March 2014. Our properties are home to over 1,000 different organisations and receive over 300 million visits each year. Our objective is to deliver long-term and sustainable total returns to our shareholders and we do this by focusing on Places People Prefer. People have a choice where they work, shop and live and we aim to create outstanding places which make a positive difference to people's everyday lives. Our customer orientation enables us to develop a deep understanding of the people who use our places. We employ a lean team of experts, who have the skills to translate this understanding into creating the right places, and we have an efficient capital structure which is able to effectively finance these places.

UK Retail assets account for 53% of our portfolio. As the UK's largest listed owner and manager of retail space, our portfolio is well matched to the different ways people shop today, from major regional shopping centres to single occupier locations. We are focused on being the destination of choice for retailers and their customers by being the best provider of spaces and services. Comprising around 25 million sq ft of retail space across 66 retail parks, 85 superstores, 15 shopping centres, 12 department stores and 77 leisure assets, the retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats.

Our Office and Residential portfolio, which accounts for 47% of our portfolio is focused on London, We have an attractive mix of high‑quality buildings in well‑managed environments and a pipeline of development projects which will add significantly to our portfolio. Increasingly, our offices are in mixed-use environments which include retail and residential elements. Our 7.3 million sq ft of high quality office space includes Regent's Place and Paddington Central in the West End and Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share).

Our size and substance demands a responsible approach to business. We believe leadership on issues such as sustainability helps drive our performance and is core to the delivery of our overall objective of driving shareholder value and creating Places People Prefer.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.