First pictures from inside ‘quiet’ Meadowhall as shops reopen to customers

Lengthy queues formed outside shops in Sheffield city centre yesterday as lockdown measures were eased and non essential shops were allowed to start trading again.

WATCH: Take a walking tour of new-look Meadowhall with traffic light system

But, to the surprise of some who returned to Meadowhall the shopping centre was quieter than expected.

Leanne Fearn said: “I went about 3pm and it was completely empty, no queuing to get in and no queuing for the shops.

“A security guard said it wasn’t half as busy as he’d expected it to be.”

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Gav Gray, who took a photograph of the shopping centre and posted it on Twitter to show how quiet it was, said: “It was all very well organised and planned.”

Because a number of car parks were closed off yesterday, those which were open were full, leaving shoppers expecting the centre to be busy.

But Adam Green said he went at 3.30pm and it was ‘absolutely dead’, Ryan Cosford said the shopping centre was ‘dead’ at 12.30pm and Zander Sheldon said at 4pm there was ‘nobody in sight’.

Meadowhall has introduced several new measures to help keep staff and customers safe.

They include hand sanitiser stations at entrances, a ‘keep left’ system throughout the shopping centre, and a green and red traffic light system to tell people when they can enter shops depending on capacity inside.