Westfield, Europe's largest urban shopping centre, opens today in Shepherd's Bush. Its owners – and the mayor – have great hopes for it, but rather than a boost to the local area, isn't it just another huge step on the way to destroying London's character? This "retail marvel" seems no more than an overwhelmingly imposing monstrocity that forces its blandness on its environment.

The champions of this vast scrawling Gormenghast of a mall – which covers nine postcodes over 43 acres – hope its 265 shops, 14-screen cinema, 50 restaurants and 4,500 space car park will provide a much needed boost to a retail-starved but affluent area of London.

But I see this simple faith in the power of consumerism and chainstore Britain as misplaced – and, in the new economic climate, rather dated. This belief in the healing properties of vast comsumer bins, with the little matter of sweeping all sense of place away in their wakes, just seems to take us further down a road to dull, lifeless conformity.

The mall from the air