Why this huge shopping centre had to shut and everyone was told to leave

Shops at the Bridgend Designer Outlet were evacuated on Saturday afternoon (May 18). Saturday is one of the busiest days at the shopping complex and people at the scene have said that traffic in and out of the car parks was extremely busy.

The evacuation was after what was described as a “power outage”. Western Power quickly restored the system and the shops were only closed for around 20 minutes. Join our WhatsApp news community here for the latest breaking news.

A statement from the outlet said earlier: “Due to a power outage in the local area all stores are currently temporarily closed. Western Power are aware of the fault and are working to resolve the issue. We will post an update as soon as the situation has been resolved.”

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Around 20 minutes later they put out an update: “The power has now been restored and the centre is now open again. Thank you for bearing with us and apologies for any inconvenience caused.” Staff have been praised for helping customers to get out of shops and toilet areas where the lights had gone off.

One wrote on social media: “The whole of Mcarthur Glen staff ran around to make sure all people in centre were safe and they did a brilliant job.” The Odeon cinema at the site had also been affected by the outage.