Out-Of-Town shopping outlets on the periphery of York are proving to be a major hit among visitors near and far.

Tourism co-ordinator Amanda James, left, with marketing manager Amanda Wright at the coach park serving McArthurGlen Designer Outlet on the outskirts of York

In the first six months of trading, the Monks Cross Shopping Park, off the A64 ring road, has seen a ten per cent increase on its expected visitors since opening last September.

This includes attracting visitors to the city, with 17 per cent of residents from outside the York area, including Scarborough, Bridlington and Pickering, visiting the park.

More than 65 per cent of residents from local areas, including York, Selby and Wetherby, also visit Monks Cross, which has received nearly two million shoppers. The Park, which has 25 retail units on site, including Woolworth, WH Smith, and PC World, along with free parking for 1,000 cars, averages around 75,000 visitors a week. This is the equivalent of an FA Cup Final crowd every seven days - which is above the park's planned target of 1.8 million shopping visits for the period.

Katherine Hague, centre manager at Monks Cross Shopping Park, said: "When the park opened we aimed to add to the variety of services found in York. We are pleased to be attracting a significant number of out-of-town visitors to York and providing a service to our local community."

The £90 million Monks Cross site is owned by Pillar Property plc, Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust and British Airways Pensions Trustees.

Meanwhile, McArthurGlen Designer Outlet is well on target to attract four million visitors during its first year of operation. In recent weeks, the number of coach visitors to the outlet has doubled, with coaches coming from Tyneside, London, Luxembourg and Germany.

As a signal of its commitment to attracting visitors to York, McArthurGlen has joined York Minster, the Castle Museum, the Jorvik Viking Centre and the National Railway Museum on the committee of tourism consortium York 2000.

McArthurGlen's marketing manager, Amanda Wright, said: "We are working hard to promote the Designer Outlet as a tourist attraction. Early indications are excellent and we will continue to build on the successful partnerships with other service providers, tourism agencies and key attractions for the benefit of York as a whole and the surrounding areas."

Chairman of York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce's Retail Committee, Adam Sinclair, said: "We have seen a huge proliferation of retail space in the greater York area over the past year. McArthur Glen has brought some extra visitors into the area, because it offers something different from the norm. The trick is getting these visitors into the city centre."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.