How good was the week’s run-up to Black Friday for Bluewater owner Landsec’s shopping centres and its retail partners? Very good, according to its managing director of Retail, Bruce Findlay.

Over the course of last week, footfall reached 4.5 million “a point that we don’t usually see until around the second week of December, and +6.5% against the same period last year”, Findlay said.

Add to that a near-1 million guests visiting its destinations on the Saturday (30 December), he noted several of its brand partners “reported record-breaking sales across our destinations, and our outlets” with Gunwharf Quays, Clarks Village and Braintree Village recording their “best trading weeks to date”.

And with its “biggest brands right now continuing to focus on larger, better stores, the likes of Sephora at Bluewater and Nike across our portfolio experienced long queues throughout the weekend,” he noted.

Findlay added: “We’re seeing that, increasingly, shoppers are using Black Friday as a ‘marking post’ in the countdown to Christmas, a signal that the festive shopping season is well and truly unde rway.”

The upbeat performance follows last month’s strong results for Landsec’s half-year ended 30 September. At the time, chief executive Mark Allan said is “operational outperformance continues, with further growth in occupancy and positive rental uplifts across our retail and London portfolio, which is translating into accelerated income growth.”