SHOPPERS continued to throng the streets of Bradford city centre today in a last-minute rush to buy gifts.

Those looking to get the latest 'best before' dates on fresh food were also expected to give Morrisons one of its busiest days of the year at its supermarkets across the district.

And generous shoppers have enabled the Kirkgate Shopping Centre, in the city centre, to donate more than £1,300 to the Bradford Food Bank through donations for its free gift wrapping service, with more expected.

Local retail leader Val Summerscales said the high street had benefited from computer glitches at several leading supermarkets which had interrupted deliveries of only orders.

The Bradford Chamber of Trade secretary said the signs were that retailers would enjoy a bumper Christmas.

"Retailers have gone all out to attract people into their shops rather than shop online. The computer glitches suffered by customers of Waitrose, Asda and Sainsbury's this week have gone to remind us that using local shops is often a better alternative," she said.

A Morrisons spokesman said: “In Christmas week we sell twice the amount of food we’d normally sell. We do an extra week trading and provide food for 11 per cent of the country. Midday on December 23 and 24 are our busiest times in store.

“However, customers still want everything on their shopping list and quick service. Therefore we have extra colleagues on the shop floor and an 1,800-strong ‘Availability Champion’ team to ensure we have no gaps on shelves.”

Kirkgate Centre manager Catherine Riley said a sign of how busy the shops were was a lack of calls to her office from retailers.

"Although we won't get the actual figures until next week, it seems to have been as busy as ever with the usual last minute rush to complete the Christmas shopping. It's a good sign when retailers are too busy to make their usual calls to my office .

" I've also seen some embargoed sales information and I can assure people that there will be some real post-Christmas bargains available from Boxing Day," she said.

Some gloom has been injected into the festive cheer by corporate distress experts at Begbies Traynor.

It said UK retailers are considerably worse off this Christmas than they were last year, with 24,251 retailers suffering ‘significant’ financial distress, against 15,792 at the same stage last year - a rise of 54 per cent.

Julian Pitts, Begbies Traynor regional managing partner, said the only real winners were the largest online retailers and big brand high street chains with the biggest discounts and best online offerings.