Sales fever held Brentwood in a vice-like grip as the town enjoyed a late Christmas and pre-new year shopping boom.

For the three day run up to Christmas Day traffic gridlocked as shoppers poured into the town on a bumper spree.

And shops reported a High Street akin to a busy Saturday when they re-opened for the New Year sales on Monday.

On Tuesday Dorothy Denton, manager of Marks and Spencer, said: "On the three days before Christmas we were very busy especially on the food front.

"But on Monday we opened at 9am with people's noses already pressing up against the windows and were absolutely bombed out.

"The sales were phenomenal and at one stage we were really struggling as we didn't have enough staff to open up tills.

"On Monday alone we had more than 1,000 customers through our customer service exchange desk."

The story was the same at Next where staff arrived to open for their New Year sale on Monday at 7am to find a 200-strong queue.

Manager, Jo Doig, said: "We were pretty busy before Christmas but on Monday it was manic. We had to restrict people coming in and there were still queues outside at 10am.

The manager of Sainsbury's, Paul Heywood, reported their first year of Christmas trading as "extremely satisfactory' as two of their NCP car park staff were drafted in to help the 'sheer numbers of people' trying to get into the car park.

He said: "Though we weren't open on Sunday more than 1,000 people turned up at the store thinking we were."

Acting manager of Robert Dyas, Steve Clark, said: "Pre-Christmas went very well and though the sales have got off to a slow start I'm sure things will pick up."

Commenting on the traffic gridlock Acting Insp Mick Green of Brentwood Traffic said: "This was caused by the sheer volume of traffic and the problems with the existing road layout, especially at Wilson's Corner."

Brentwood Council deputy chief executive, Bob McLintock, said: "It was busy but the sheer volume of traffic reflected the number of people visiting the town, showing we have a viable economic community."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.