Good news stories are often like the proverbial bus….

Three major announcements this week have set the world of retail property on fire.

*Westfield is to raise £871.5m by selling half of its Stratford City shopping mall a year before completion. Dutch pension fund manager APG and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will each own a 25% indirect interest in the retail element of the scheme..

*It is rare for a planning inspector’s recommendation for refusal to be overturned when it comes to major retail schemes but Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has just done that and granted planning permission for Lend Lease’s 1.5m-sq ft Tithebarn project in Preston.

*But the real headturning story was when Capital Shopping Centres confirmed that it is in talks to buy the Trafford Centre in Manchester, in a £1.6bn.deal.

CSC expects to pay £750m in shares for the Trafford Centre with a further £75m cash contribution to Peel. It will also assume £800m of existing debt secured on the centre.

If the deal goes ahead it will underpin CSC’s position as the nation’s pre-eminent  shopping centre landlord with it owning Lakeside, Braehead, Metrocentre and the Mall at Cribbs Causeway of the UK megamalls.