Report by Alan Calvert, Industrial Editor THE large temporary banner on the £600 million Trafford Centre says it all. "Merry Christmas 1997. Your Last Ordinary Christmas Shopping Experience," it reads. Retailers in Bolton town centre are used to what the banner describes as "ordinary" Christmas shopping sprees, which attract thousands of people and generate profits.

The massive Trafford Centre complex, a small city which will employ more than 7,000 people, is on schedule to open, on budget, in September next year.

North-west shopping WILL be different next Christmas.

Nobody expects a total disaster in Bolton because the town has enormous strengths as a shopping centre and various organisations are battling to make sure it retains and enhances its appeal.

But there is no way that the opposition can be underestimated.

The Trafford Centre at Dumplington is just short of 13 miles from Bolton town centre and it takes about 20 minutes to get there along the M63 - if the traffic is reasonable.

This week photographer Jon Savage and myself were given a guided tour of the site, accessible on the left from junctions 3 and 4 after the Barton Bridge flyover.

Next September approaching motorists will be guided from the motorway to parking areas by a sophisticated traffic management system.

About £10 million is being spent on highway improvement schemes.

There will be 10,000 free car parking spaces, the capacity to manage 120 buses per hour and parking for 300 coaches.

In the future there could be a Metrolink extension and a rail link.

More than 30 million visitors are expected annually and they will spend an estimated £13 billion.

Even allowing for public relations hype, there is no arguing with the fact that the project is mightily impressive.

The Trafford Centre, which is the size of 30 football pitches, has 280 retail units on two levels and three miles of shop fronts.

There will be a 14-screen UCI cinema with 3,250 seats and a major food and leisure area called The Orient, which will include a model of an ocean liner and a huge video wall.

There will be 23 leisure and catering outlets giving a flavour of the Far East, New York, Italy, New Orleans and Egypt.

The Trafford Centre will open at 10am during the week - to avoid the morning rush hour.

The shops will stay open to 8pm or 9pm, but the Orient Leisure area can be closed off from the rest of the centre allowing access to restaurants and bars into the early hours.

The development is by Trafford Centre Ltd, a subsidiary of property group Peel Holdings, the company which is seeking to bring the former royal yacht Britannia to Manchester.

If this bid is successful - and hopes are high - the famous vessel will come to rest in a purpose-built berth near the Barton swing bridge on the Manchester Ship Canal, not far from the Trafford Centre. After picking our way through the mud, we were able to appreciate the sheer scale of the Trafford Centre job undertaken by management contractor Bovis Europe and numerous sub-contractors, including William Hare of Bolton.

At the moment there are 1,300 people working on the site.

This figure will have risen to about 3,000 by next summer.

Architects have designed internal decor to high specifications along classical lines so that it does not go out of date.

It will include "water features" and statues. The impressive Dome - visible for miles around - stands more than 60 metres above the surrounding area and is now illuminated at night.

Mr James Lindsay, business director, will be in charge of the day to day operation of the development when the building and fitting-out work has been completed.

He will head a team of about 300 people.

Mr Lindsay is well aware of the fears of surrounding towns like Bolton, but believes the centre will be a powerful economic generator for the whole of the region.

"We have to work in partnership with the whole of the North-west to make sure everyone has a slice of what is going to happen," he said.

It is estimated that there are 5.35 million people within a 45 minute drive.

"We have to get people to take in the Trafford Centre - and the surrounding towns such as Bolton," he said.

Mr Lindsay anticipates that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of the Trafford Centre's business will be after 5pm in the evening.

And by the year 2004 he expects 25 per cent of visitors to arrive by public transport.

A coach and bus operators' seminar is being held at the Trafford Centre in mid-February to discuss arrangements.

About £2 million is being spent on landscaping features.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.