OXFORD STREET and Regent Street go traffic free this Saturday for the now regular pre-Christmas event in which hundreds of millions of pounds are expected to be splashed by eager present-buyers.


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Sponsored by American Express, the officially-titled West End VIP (Very Important Pedestrian) Day expands the elbow room available to bag-laden shoppers by closing off the two famous streets between 8am and 8pm.

This year’s innovation is to have dozens of Gift Gurus walking around supplying present-buying tips and, as usual, there will be plenty of street entertainments and tempting offers to lure extra punters from the hundred or so shops involved in VIP Day.

For one of those lures – a West End shopping weekend for two – you don’t even have to bother going up west; just enter on line instead.

But if you do make the trip, salve that gnawing consumer guilt with the knowledge that £1 of every purchase made via American Express goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.