The UK’s best shopping centre has been crowned for the 2024 festive season

Ah, family Christmas. Full of roast dinners, heartwarming movies with hot chocolate, and shopping. So. Much. Shopping. 

If you’re one of the clever few who has been preparing since January, you probably know exactly what you want to get everyone, where you’ll be buying it, how much it’ll cost you, and what sort of bow you’ll use to wrap it all up. For the rest of us, present-buying is destined to become a sort of mid-December scramble full of ‘what does Dad actually like again’ and ‘why doesn’t my sister like soaps or candles’ moments. But there are things we can do to ease the pain.

One such thing is picking the right places to do your shopping. You don’t want to end up trekking through a shopping centre with a single Greggs, three charity shops, and a strange ‘community space’ that’s always shut when you’re trying to find creative, cute gifts. You may assume that the best mall to hit up is just the biggest, but according to a study from online car retailer cinch, you’d be wrong.

In fact, cinch’s research suggests that the best shopping centre in the UK for Christmas shopping is Bluewater in Kent. This is the second year in a row that Bluewater has topped cinch’s poll.

To determine Bluewater’s supremacy, cinch compared the 20 largest malls in the country in terms of size, parking convenience, parking affordability, shopping and food options, and customer ratings. Each of these categories was given a rating out of 100, then they were combined and averaged to give a total score for each place. Basically, the study covered a lot of bases.  

According to cinch, Bluewater did so well thanks its perfect average score of 100, and due to providing ‘13,000 free parking spaces, 350 shops and restaurants spread across 1,800,000 square feet, and a Google review rating of 4.5 stars’, remarking that ‘it’s no surprise that Bluewater ranks top of our list’. 

In second place is the Metrocentre in Newcastle at 95.6, which is slightly bigger than Bluewater, but is lacking slightly in parking spaces and places to eat. It was quickly followed by Meadowhall in Sheffield, which had a score of 95.1. Northerners, you’re spoiled for choice. Metrocentre has replaced Meadowhall as the country’s second-best mall, according to cinch. Here are the rest of the top 10.

The top 10 shopping centres in the UK for Christmas 2024

1. Bluewater, Kent: 100
2. Metrocentre Gateshead, Tyne and Wear: 95.6
3. Meadowhall, Sheffield: 95.1
4. The Trafford Centre Trafford, Greater Manchester:  88.6
5. Lakeside Shopping Centre, Thurrock: 87.8
6. Merry Hill, Dudley: 81.4
7. Westfield, Shepherd’s Bush, London: 80.2
8. Westfield, Stratford, London: 72
9. Braehead, Renfrewshire: 65.5
10. Centre:mk, Milton Keynes: 61.9

You can read more details on all the places mentioned on cinch’s website here and read more about last year’s study here.

Time Out and the British high street

As the custodian of British city life with all its ups and downs, we at Time Out have up-to-date info about what’s closing, what’s new in the retail world and everything in-between. Here’s the full list of UK high street stores closing in 2024, why Poundland is closing its stores this December and where the next Uniqlo store will be opening.

Did you see that these Scottish cafes are selling the UK’s most expensive coffee for nearly £300?

Plus: Here’s when the Coca-Cola Christmas truck will return for 2024. 

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