Gove joins last minute present rush but stores left shattered

HIGH streets descended into chaos yesterday as shoppers were left with just hours to buy their Christmas gifts before stores closed at midnight last night in London and South East.

Pictures from Oxford Street in London showed huge crowds of shoppers flooding the streets to get their last minute purchases in before the introduction of the tier 4 measures.

Even Michael Gove, wearing his mask, was seen laden down with parcels after a shopping splurge in Central London Elsewhere, huge queues formed along the country’s high streets and super markets as they stocked up on Christmas essentials. Experts predict the UK’s tills will ring with a staggering £2.5 million-a-minute spent before December 22 as shoppers stack up on last-minute gifts. Mask-wearing shoppers formed winding queues outside Costco in Manchester.

And in Newcastle, the high street was jam-packed with locals eager to get their last-minute presents.

In Southampton, tech-savvy buyers queued outside Currys PC World while a Kent marketplace put up signs warning pedestrians of the Covid risk in the region.

However, experts said there were 2.6 per cent fewer people on shop floors than last Saturday, with huge drops being seen when compared to the same period last year.

Footfall was down more than 35 per cent nationwide than on the same Saturday in 2019, while the drop off was a massive 70 per cent in Central London.

Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, said the move to tier 4 was ‘disastrous’, adding: ‘ Closing Covid- secure nonessential shops at this time of year does not deter people. It only leads to larger crowds in those stores left to trade, giving every opportunity for this virus to spread.’

And Federation of Small Businesses vice-chairman Martin McTague said it was a ‘hammer blow’ to non-essential retailers.