Sara Saunders stepped off her flight from Stockholm to London on Saturday morning and made a beeline for Ikea.

Saunders, 45, wasn’t schlepping out to its Croydon superstore, though. Instead, the Swedish native headed straight to Livat, a shopping centre bringing a splash of Swedish culture to a busy high street in Hammersmith, west London.

Ikea bought what was the King’s Mall, a dreary shopping centre, three years ago for £170 million. The flatpack furniture giant renamed it Livat — a Swedish word that translates as “bustling gathering” — and opened a two-storey Ikea shop inside that stocks about half of its 10,000 products.

“It’s usually a bit of an event to go to Ikea,” Saunders said, recalling memories of loading up the family car