[2] Brent Cross attracted 15–16 million shoppers a year as of 2011[3] and has one of the largest incomes per unit area of retail space in the country.

[4] Brent Cross Shopping Centre was developed by Hammerson and opened by the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, on 2 March 1976.

[6] It was the first out-of-town and American-style indoor shopping centre in the country, with its construction taking 19 years to complete at a cost of £20 million.

A local newspaper called the centre a "futuristic concept", and its features such as the indoor fountain and air conditioning were noted.

But step through the doors and here is prettiness and femininity – just as soulless and just as commercialised as the filth outside, but a veritable perfumed nirvana.Brent Cross quickly became a popular attraction for people in London and the South East, and a blueprint for shopping centres across Europe.

[18] The original three department stores when Brent Cross opened – Fenwick, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer – remain at the site.

Work to extend the centre was begun in 1994 and was completed by 1996, giving it a capacity for 120 stores[13] as well as a new multi-storey car park, replacing the older one, which added 2,000 new spaces.

The John Lewis and Fenwick Department stores were to remain in their current location, Marks & Spencer was to move to a new location on the extended site, the bus station was to be relocated, and new parks, a "living bridge" across the North Circular Road and a cinema were all planned, along with new multi-storey car parks (with the existing surface carparks to be used for the shopping centre extension).

The action takes place in a balkanized UK, in the middle of the 21st century, and the ruins of the shopping centre are used as a local market for the anarchist enclave of Norlonto ('North London Town').