Parent company British Land said the new Meadowhall Food Court has seen strong demand from customers. Recent openings such as Zizzi and Coal have contributed to a 12 per cent increase in the food court's turnover in the six months to September 30.
Meadowhall's former food hall has been redesigned to create larger and better-shaped units.

While the shopping centre reported good overall retail performance over the six months, it has seen a further £112m fall in its value, dropping 7.4 per cent to £1,400m.

British Land said the value of its property portfolio, which covers retail, office and business parks, had fallen more than 10 per cent over the period.

The rapid UK property correction has stripped more than a billion pounds off the value of the group's assets. But the UK's second-largest real estate investor, seen as a bellwether for UK property firms, is benefiting from retailers taking space in its landmark shopping centres such as Meadowhall and corporate occupiers in its office towers in London. Existing residents are also willing to pay higher rents for their premises.

"We offer resilience in an otherwise uncertain market," said chairman Chris Gibson-Smith. "Over the past few years we have reshaped our portfolio to focus on prime property. Our average lease lengths are 13 years with only 4 per cent up for renewal in the next three years," he said.

British Land said its portfolio remained 97 per cent let and it had achieved more than 900,000 square feet of lettings in the six months.

It also posted like-for-like rental income growth of 4.2 per cent versus the same period in 2007, beating industry benchmarks of 3.5 per cent.

Finance director Graham Roberts said tenants representing less than 0.6 per cent of British Land's total annual rent roll had defaulted over the six months, but the level could rise in the New Year as occupiers struggled to cope with tightened consumer spending and restricted access to debt.

He also said he was pleased British Land had steered away from large-scale shopping centre development championed by rivals Westfield Group, who opened Europe's largest shopping mall in London last month.

"One of the reasons we haven't got into big scale shopping centre development is because it actually takes many, many years to complete these things and you never know what cycle you are delivering into," said Mr Roberts

"We are 99 per cent let in our retail, because we haven't done that in the UK on that scale. Anyone delivering a shopping centre in this market will find they have to give considerable incentives to tenants to let up," he said.

Instead the group is focusing on its tried and tested formula at Meadowhall and the Bon Accord in Aberdeen.

Mr Gibson-Smith said British Land's hunt for a replacement for former chief executive Stephen Hester, who joined Royal Bank of Scotland last month, is progressing well,

"The opportunity to become the CEO of a FTSE 100 company is something people will do a lot for, so we're not short of interest," he said.

The company said its portfolio valuation had dropped 10.8 per cent, with office buildings 13.2 per cent lower and high street retail assets down 12.7 per cent over the period.

The company posted a pre-tax loss of £1.33bn, including valuation write-downs, but a £144m pre-tax profit when these were stripped away.