YESTERDAY'S 'grand reopening' in Oxfordshire was a tale of two cities – or rather, one city and one 'village'.
Last week we worried that the new one-way system and other rules in Oxford city centre would divide people – or worse, that it wouldn't.
However with the trickle of shoppers who ventured into the city centre, there was little need to worry about division.
But at Bicester Village, meanwhile, the crowds were so thick that physical division was all but impossible.
And, predictably, as the day wore on a growing number of shoppers sent us pictures to show what a potential disaster the outlet was turning into.
As Bicester Village got ready to reopen last week, we also said we hoped that managers would learn their lesson from the first half of the pandemic, when staff and shoppers contacted us saying their concerns over safety were being ignored.
Yesterday it seemed that not only had all those concerns not been addressed, the problems were worse than ever.
The photos we were sent prove one thing: people's desperate, desperate drive to go shopping, even in the face of physical danger. We sincerely hope it was worth it.
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