Mall bosses will learn crowd lessons

Telford Shopping Centre bosses have vowed to learn the lessons of a chaotic public appearance by stars of Britain's Got Talent and X Factor.

Centre bosses were forced to temporarily close the mall after thousands of people crammed in yesterday afternoon. Many fans feared for their safety, at least one person was sick and one man was seen lifting his child above his head while the youngster was still in his pushchair.

• For pictures click here

Leah Roberts, spokeswoman for Telford Shopping Centre, said: "We will learn from this.

"The most important thing for us is shopper safety and, to my knowledge, nobody was hurt.

"We had prepared for it and drafted in extra security. But we didn't expect it to be so popular. There were more shoppers and fans than we'd expected."

The shopping centre's busiest event of the year is usually the Christmas lights switch on, which attracts between 500 and 700 people.

However, yesterday's event saw between two and three times that many try to cram into the centre.

Ms Roberts added: "We would normally have between eight and 10 security on for a busy shopping day but yesterday there were 15.

"We drafted a number of security away from car parking duties to assist with crowd control.

"We had deliberately staggered the entertainment across the lunchtime and early afternoon, so that there were not too many people in one place at the same time.

"However, the event was exceptionally popular and a lot of shoppers tried to get along.

"Our primary concern was public safety, which is why we decided to change the running order during the afternoon."

The frenzied scenes started shortly before a performance at noon by X Factor duo Same Difference in Sherwood Square.

A meet and greet also caused chaotic scenes.

Tracey Hadley, another spokeswoman for the shopping centre, said that a planned performance later on by Signature was reduced from 10 minutes to just one song.

Staff at Debenhams were also forced to pull down some of the shutters as people spilled into the store.

Many witnesses complained of poor crowd control.

By Andy Richardson