Crawley’s shoppers are beginning to return to the town

‘Encouraging’ figures for August - the first full month of trading since lockdown eased - have revealed traders are upbeat about the future.

A spokesman for County Mall said:” With all the safety measures in place, we are still operating at a lower capacity allowance in the centre at anyone time so naturally the footfall is down year-on-year, however, it has steadily increased week on week and has consistently out-performs the national benchmark.

“As more and more people have been going back to work, normality has been restored as to when visitors come to County Mall.

“The immediate post lockdown period in June and July saw a more event spread to the day and time when shoppers visited but August saw a noticeable shift back to our usual shopper habits where the middle of the day proved to be the most popular time to visit and Saturdays being the preferred day to shop reaching 90 per cent capacity on the last Saturday of August.

“We’ve seen an increase to the number of visitors opting to drive to the centre, distributing the footfall traffic more evenly around the mall.

“We actively encourage shoppers to drive in where possible as the entrances/exits into the Mall from the carpark levels are far less busy then the Lower Mall entrances/exits.

“This will make it easier for families coming in together and those that want to grab and go in a hurry.

“Our retailers have seen encouraging sales figures with many exceeding their weekly targets. We are seeing reassuring upwards trends as we come in to Q4 as shoppers continue to visit and basket values increase.”

Meanwhile the hospital sector is also signs of a boost after the latest figures showed discounts on more than 80,000 meals were claimed across 68 locations in the Crawley area under the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

Crawley MP Henry Smith said: “I have no doubt that there are businesses in Crawley today which, without this brilliant scheme, may not have made it through the summer.

“I hope local people will continue to support them in the months ahead.”