Bradford tills are ringing as a last-minute Christmas spending boom draws hundreds of thousands of shoppers to the city centre.

The Kirkgate centre, the city's biggest indoor shopping mall, today reported a record quarter of a million people through its doors last week. And, with just four shopping days left, traders are predicting their best-ever Christmas - despite the road and building works affecting the city centre.

Kirkgate Centre manager Catherine Riley said: "We had 250,000 people through the doors last week and are expecting it to get higher this week, especially as Christmas Eve is on a Saturday, giving shoppers that extra day."

She said the figure was helped by a last-minute rush: "Research shows that as Christmas gets nearer people are more inclined to stay closer to home, so the more we expect to see people nipping out in their lunch hour or popping in on their way home from work.

"Many of our shops are responding to that by staying open till 7pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and we are open until 9pm on Thursday anyway.

"We have been so busy that on Saturday I had to help out in the car-park, directing shoppers to where we had spaces."

Mrs Riley said the whole of the town centre had been fizzing. "There is a real buzz on the streets and the shops themselves are heaving," she said. "It is looking like a good Christmas for retailers."

Rachel Smith, from Bradford Council's city centre management team, said: "Bradford City Centre has been very busy this pre-Christmas season and shoppers have been undeterred by the demolition work on Broadway.

"The newly pedestrianised Rawson Square has been particularly busy as has Bradford's newest retail recruit for the season, the department store TJ Hughes, formerly Sunwin House."

Retailers had feared the major redevelopment work underway in the city centre would discourage shoppers. The T&A launched the Buy it in Bradford campaign, backed by Bradford council, businesses, MPs and retailers to encourage shoppers to stay loyal to the city during the regeneration work.

The demolition of the old Broadway to make way for the city's new £300 million shopping centre has begun in earnest. Buildings in nearby Petergate has been levelled and buildings in Charles Street and Broadway are now being razed to the ground.

Preparatory work has begun on parts of the masterplan for the city, created by international architect, Will Alsop, and roadworks are well underway to redirect traffic through the city centre and around the new developments.

However, Edward Lodge, manager of JJB Sports, in the Forster Square Retail Park said that his store had been much quieter than last year.

"The past couple of days have been disappointing. It's been steady rather than spectacular."

Mr Lodge said that he was hoping for a last minute boom as customers shop for those final few Christmas presents.

Bradford's festive shopping boom is not echoed nationally, with December reportedly a far worse one for the retail industry compared with 2004.

The FootFall organisation which examines retail trends nationwide, reported that shopper numbers were 5.4 per cent lower than December 2004.

And financial experts say that UK high streets are still facing tough competition from the Internet. A survey published this week showed that almost 40 per cent of British adults do some of their Christmas shopping online, compared with 22 per cent in 2001.