The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and entertainment complex in Urmston, Greater Manchester, England. It opened in 1998 and is third largest in the United Kingdom by retail space. Originally developed by the Peel Group, the Trafford Centre was sold to Capital Shopping Centres, later to become Intu, in 2011 for £1.65 billion setting a record as the costliest single property sale in British history. The battle to obtain permission to build the centre was amongst the longest and most expensive in United Kingdom planning history. the Trafford Centre had Europe's largest food court and the UK's busiest cinema. History Genesis The site was owned by the Manchester Ship Canal Company which John Whittaker's Peel Holdings had been acquiring shares in since 1971 Manchester City Council also had a stake, but by the mid 1980s Whittaker had a majority control and proposed building an out-of-town shopping centre, and other schemes. The council faced a conflict of interest as both a local planning authority and shareholder. Its minority shareholding also no longer gave it any real control over the company. Accordingly, in 1986 it surrendered the right to appoint all but one of the Manchester Ship Canal's directors, and sold its shares to Whittaker for £10 million. Manchester City Council opposed Whittaker's proposal for retail development, stating it would impact negatively on the city centre economy, but accepted it was "obviously in the interests of the shareholders". Peel Holdings submitted a planning application to Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council for development of approximately of land in 1986. The application was called in by the Secretary of State for the Environment and legal disputes ensued requiring two public inquiries before planning permission was granted. Objections included congestion fears on the M60 motorway, and adverse consequences for retailers across Greater Manchester. Planning permission was granted in 1993 before being blocked by the Court of Appeal, then reinstated in 1995 by the House of Lords. Twelve years after being proposed, the Trafford Centre opened on 10 September 1998. Construction had taken 27 months at a cost of £600 million. The Barton Square and Great Hall extensions opened in 2008, at a combined cost of over £100 million. Intu Peel Group sold the centre to Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) in January 2011 for £1.6 billion, in cash and shares, and John Whittaker, chairman of Peel Group, became deputy chairman of CSC. He later