BARGAIN hunters flocked to Burnley today for the start of the sales.

First to be besieged was the Next store which opened at 5am -- an hour earlier than the neighbouring store in Blackburn -- to be greeted by a flurry of early risers keen to snap up bargains.

Office manager at the store Alethea Lott said: "We've been really, really busy and most of the sale stuff has gone. We took around £50,000 in the first four hours of trading."

And she said rather than going home, most early bird shoppers were sticking around in town to shop in other stores, most of which were sticking to their normal opening hours.

At Boundary Mill in Colne, shoppers flocked to the store on Boxing Day and the store was staying open until 9pm today to people the chance to shop well into the evening.