A SHOPPING centre had its busiest day since lockdown restrictions were lifted on "Super Saturday".

Lion Walk Shopping Centre welcomed around 23,500 visitors on Saturday, the highest total since retailers reopened on June 15, the day pubs and restaurants in the town opened their doors again.

The figure is 69 per cent of the amount of customers Lion Walk welcomed on the same day last year.

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Clacton and Frinton Gazette:

  • Lion Walk has introduced a raft of new safety measures

The shopping centre has introduced a raft of new safety measures, setting up hygiene stations, queuing barriers and the like.

There are also directional signs to direct customers and aid social distancing. 

There have also been a number of town centre wide changes, such as a ban on cars using the High Street, to aid social distancing and make the town centre more attractive to shoppers.

In the three weeks since opening, footfall figures have been on average two-thirds as high as 2019.

The week beginning June 29 was the busiest, with 105,861 shoppers visiting the centre, compared with 154,836 last year.

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The first day of reopening was the busiest by percentage of last year's figure, with the shopping centre receiving 76 per cent of its usual footfall.

Clacton and Frinton Gazette:

  • Shoppers in Lion Walk on the first day of retailers reopening 

Shopping centre bosses said Lion Walk was outperforming the UK average by around 25 per cent according to national data.

For more information about Lion Walk, or the new measures which are in place, visit lionwalkshopping.com.