THE £9m extension at the Glasgow Fort Shopping Park has helped attract more people and led to them spending greater sums, according to British Land.

In its annual results the company hailed the impact the 46,000 square feet development has made since it opened in September.

The investment in the site added a Vue cinema as well as TGI Friday's, Prezzo, Harvester, Chiquito and Pizza Express restaurants.

The Jersey-based Hercules Unit Trust (HUT) owns both Fort Kinnaird near Edinburgh and Glasgow Fort. British Land now owns almost 50% of HUT.

British Land said: "Since opening, the Glasgow Fort has seen significant uplifts in footfall, dwell time and average consumer spend."

It confirmed a further 112,000 square feet addition to the retail park is expected to open next year.

Marks & Spencer is said to be the anchor tenant and intends to have an 80,000 square feet store. A separate planning application for a new multi-storey car park has also been submitted.

Meanwhile at Fort Kinnaird work is continuing on a major leisure extension, including an Odeon cinema and several restaurants.

British Land highlighted the first out of town store opened by Patisserie Valerie at the Edinburgh location.

The bid to put a new Debenhams store there is still listed in British Land's pipeline of developments in spite of it being rejected by Edinburgh Council planning officials in October.

Yesterday British Land signalled it is seeing growing confidence outside of London in the property market with demand for prime retail sites increasing.

It said: "The tentative signs we saw of an improving UK retail market at the beginning of 2013 have strengthened over the last 12 months, underpinned by better than expected economic growth and growing consumer confidence.

"While appetite for high quality space in the best locations has improved, retailers continue to reduce their exposure to more secondary locations which in many cases are becoming functionally and economically obsolete.

"Rental values in more secondary locations continued to decline while prime rental values rose modestly."

British Land's underlying profit before tax increased 8.4% from £260m to £297m in the 12 months to March 31 this year.

The company's portfolio also includes the Whiteley Shopping Centre in Hampshire, Ealing Broadway in London and Inverness Retail Park. Net rental income across the year was up 3.9% from £541m to £562m.

Shares in British Land closed up 4.5p, or 0.63%, at 719.5p.