A GWENT shopping centre is celebrating its busiest Christmas with a double-record-breaking number of festive shoppers.

Nearly 400,000 people poured into Cwmbran's town centre in the week before Christmas. Cwmbran Shopping management said the previous record for the busiest retail week was smashed by more than 12,000 people.

And the busiest day of the week was Friday, December 23 - recording a new daily record of just under 77,000 shoppers visiting the centre.

Centre manager Gerry Hutchings said: "The footfall figures are excellent news for Cwmbran, and we have had many individual stores reporting record sales over the festive period.

"We believe the shoppers who visited the town have been spending more money than ever before, as many of our new retailers, including Republic, HMV, and The Perfume Shop, have all reported they have beaten their sales targets."

Mark Saunders, deputy manager of Republic, in Cwmbran, said he was "over the moon" with the shop's takings.

He said: "We can't release any figures but we can confirm we have smashed our targets."

Manager of Silverscreen in Cwmbran, Simon Blondel, said he had recorded a 20 per cent rise in takings on last year. The shop sells DVD entertainment.

"Our best day was Christmas Eve, which was brilliant," he said. "The fact that we've had record numbers of people is probably a reflection on the number of quality shops we now have."

Mr Hutchings said customers were also staying longer in the town centre thanks to the growing number of new outlets and cafs.

He said the town, which has 70 shops and provides free parking, was continuing to attract shoppers from an increasingly wide area.