With St Paul's Cathedral at one end and the Bank of England at the other, Cheapside is at the bustling heart of the City of London from Monday to Friday. At weekends it is one of the deadest places in London.

That could be about to change, however, as the City takes a multimillion-pound gamble that it can become a shopping attraction to rival Bluewater or Brent Cross.

By 2012 the retail space on and around Cheapside will increase to about 1.5million sq ft, 44 per cent of which will be entirely new, an increase equivalent to the new White City shopping centre in West London. There will be, it is expected, 167 new retail units.

“It's a happy coincidence that the post-war buildings on Cheapside are coming to the end of their life,” Peter Bennett, the Deputy City Surveyor, said.

The City Corporation is part of the Cheapside Retail Initiative, along with big developers such as Land Securities. The body will market the area as a world-class shopping and leisure attraction.

The significant new factor in the area is the Millennium Bridge, the pedestrian river crossing that attracts 10,000 visitors a day, heading to the newly rebuilt Paternoster Square by St Paul's.

“Instead of turning left to God, they can turn right to Mammon,” Mr Bennett said.

Adding impetus to this is the forecast rise in the City's working population over the next decade, from 350,000 to 400,000. The City traditionally has been something of a retail desert.

A quarter of a century ago, there was not even a decent bookshop, unless you were seeking abstruse accountancy texts.

Centres such as Leadenhall Market and the more recent Royal Exchange have been developed, but historically they have attracted expensive luxury brands rather than the sort of shops patronised by middle or lower-income City staff.

Recently, the much-admired but not universally used fishmonger in Leadenhall, HS Linwood, decided that it could no longer compete with the several Marks & Spencer branches in the Square Mile.

Mr Bennett said that present weekend visitors to the City are attracted by the architectural heritage but find little else open: “They come out of Spitalfields, wander down Broadgate and there's nowhere to go.”

The aim is to build “high street shops next to Wren churches”. This would require a shift from five-day to seven-day trading.

For this to happen, the City will need the sort of transport system that it relies on for five days a week to run on all seven.

All parking is expected to be free and there are plans to open the “Drain”, the Waterloo and City Underground line, at weekends.

The biggest development is Land Securities' £500million One New Change scheme next to St Paul's.

This will have 220,000 sq ft of new retail space on three levels, taking up about 40 per cent of the scheme, and should be ready by the autumn of 2010. Land Secs is talking to potential tenants and claims to have signed some “household names”.

The development includes a viewing deck overlooking St Paul's, which is said to provide the best photographic opportunities yet.

“It will be an attraction in itself,” a Land Secs spokesman said. “The key will be having the right mix of leisure activities, in terms of restaurants and places where people can stop to browse.

“Shopping is evolving. It's becoming much more a leisure activity. The tourist flow into the City is becoming much greater, with Tate Modern, the refurbished St Paul's and so on. But during the week it will be very busy as well.”

Other retailers opening or booked to open around Cheapside include Jaeger, River Island, Ted Baker, Principles, Coast and Warehouse.

The danger, Mr Bennett conceded, is that the City will become merely another high street writ large, with the same old chains and little of distinction.

For Cheapside to become a seven-day attraction, matching or even usurping the increasingly run-down West End, will need a change of habit on the part of weekend shoppers and some bold gambles by retailers, which have been wary of investing heavily in the Square Mile because of the perception that, apart from five lunchtimes a week, it is a dead zone.

“The City is a different place, and I think the retailers understand that,” Mr Bennett said.

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