THE high street was set to experience its busiest day of the year yesterday as shoppers flooded stores and crammed supermarket aisles for last-minute Christmas gifts and provisions.

A third of consumers (31 per cent) planned to do their main Christmas food shop yesterday, according to a poll of 2,200 people for BBC Good Food.

Waitrose predicted the hour from 11am was set to be its busiest period, with sales expected to be 3.5 times higher than on a typical Wednesday, while the busiest branch was expected to be Oakgrove in Milton Keynes.

Sainsbury’s expected its checkouts to hit their peak between 11am and 1pm and Tesco had taken on extra staff to prepare for what it predicted would be its busiest in-store day.

Visa Europe predicted that high street spending on its cards would reach £1.3 billion, peaking between 1pm and 2pm when 3.2 million transactions were expected to take place, making it the biggest shopping day of the year.

Shoppers were expected to make more than 37 million transactions, up 10 per cent on last year, while the overall amount spent was predicted to be 3 per cent higher.

Kevin Jenkins, Visa Europe managing director for UK and Ireland, said: “Brits are racing to the high street to pick up last-minute presents, despite starting their Christmas shopping early this year with record amounts spent online on Black Friday.

“In keeping with previous years, the busiest day for Christmas shopping this year will be two days before Christmas where we are likely to see £1.3 billion having been spent on the high street.’’ “More than £1 million will have been spent on Visa cards every minute, rising to nearer £2 million every minute during the lunch time rush between 1pm and 2pm.

“Shoppers will be demanding quick and easy purchases during this busy period, and retailers with a contactless offering are likely to be the winners as they would be seeing shorter queuing times and happier customers.’’ Meanwhile, Bristol has been knocked out of the pole position it held last year for online festive shopping.

This season more residents of Exeter flocked to Amazon to buy CDs of Christmas music, advent calendars and selection boxes of chocolate, beating Bristol for total number of purchases.

Doncaster came second with the highest number of people investing in baubles and mistletoe.

But Bristol still ranked third, keeping the West Country firmly in position as among the most Christmassy parts of the country. Southampton was next in the list, followed by Nottingham, Brighton, Glasgow, Manchester, Peterborough and Liverpool Southampton was next in the list, followed by Nottingham, Brighton, Glasgow, Manchester, Peterborough and Liverpool.