Footfall in the town centre rose by more than 175,000 to a figure in the region of 1,565,000 for the first quarter of the year – and that is continuing into July, leaving the town on course for an extra 750,000 shoppers by the end of the year if the same trend carries on.

Town centre Manager Malcolm Hall said: "It's looking very good for the rest of the year – the week on week figures for the financial year so far are very, very encouraging. If the weather keeps up and the visitors keep coming to town it looks like it could be a very good year."

Last year's pre-Christmas footfall figures made gloomy reading for retailers – 34,000 fewer people visited the town centre in the first week of December than in the same week of 2007.

However, the overall footfall figure for 2008 was slightly up by 50,000 on the previous year, with 5,500,000 people in the town centre in 2008.

At Easter there were strong signs of recovery when an extra 24,000 people shopped in town in the holiday week – although the national trend has been for footfall to decrease.

Shopkeepers say there has been a noticeable upturn in business in recent weeks.

Read the full story in Friday's Evening News