BICESTER Village shopping centre is a "beacon to the rest of Britain" said tourism minister Tom Clarke.

He spoke by video link to a travel trade delegation visiting Bicester Village to discuss promoting joint tourism and shopping trips. He said: "I'm proud that you have got wonderful people serving the public in may ways and from different parts of Britain as well as other parts of the world.

"I'm proud you have made arrangements for currency exchange and that between you all you can speak 18 different languages."

He praised the development for seeing a new idea, grasping it and seeing it through. "In doing that Bicester Village offers itself as a beacon to the rest of Britain and indeed the rest of Europe, in terms of tourism attraction," he said.

Scott Malkin, chairman of Bicester Village's owners Value Retail, told the Oxford Mail that he was delighted at the way the centre had developed. "The backbone has been the tourism," he said.

The spend per head had tripled in the past three years, he said, although visitor numbers had stayed the same.

Mr Malkin is coy about how much each shopper actually spends, but he is quite open about the fact that he doesn't want to attract people without much money to spend.

Although he says that the smallness of Bicester Village - less than a third of the size of the Great Western centre - is part of its attraction, he has applied for planning permission to increase the space from 120,000 sq ft to 140,000 sq ft, with 14 more shops on top of the current 60 or so.

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