Luton Mall evacuated

At around 10am this morning, customers, staff and retailers had to leave the shopping complex, while other worried summer holiday shoppers arrived outside wondering why they couldn’t get in.

Thankfully, it turns out that nothing serious was behind the closure.

Roy Greening, general manager, said: “We’ve just run a fire drill evacuation test, so there are no problems here.

“Everyone is back inside now and The Mall was shut for about half an hour.

“The drill began at 10.02am and staff, retailers, and customers were allowed back in at 10.35am.

“We have to test our procedures but staff and retailers weren’t aware that this drill would be happening.

“We evacuated 2,500 people from The Mall - quite a responsibility really. Everyone was calm.”

Mr Greening thanked the Luton News for checking that everyone at The Mall was OK, after we received reports of its closure.

He joked: “It’s just harder to get people back in when we reopen!”