Shoppers have shrugged off terrorist fears and returned to the Bullring in droves - after the shopping centre suffered record low numbers following Birmingham's July 9 alert.

Visitors stayed away in their thousands on Sunday, July 10, after the city centre was cleared off 20,000 people on the Saturday evening - but bosses say that numbers are now soaring.

That news comes as Moss Bros, which was announcing a trading update, told The Birmingham Post its three city stores saw a drop-off immediately after the alert but they had now more than recovered from it.

The Bullring recorded just 50,000 visitors on the July 10 following the huge police operation the day before, which came in the wake of the July 7 bombings in London.

A normal Sunday sees around 75,000 visitors --Bullring bosses put the reduction at around 23 per cent.

Marketing controller Georgina Kelly said figures had now picked up, with this Tuesday clocking 100,000 visitors compared to 82,000 on the same Tuesday last year.

She said: "The alert did affect us on the Sunday. That is the lowest total we have ever had but now footfall has really picked up.

"We're very pleased with the way things are going.

"We're approaching two years and we are increasingly established as weekend attraction throughout the region. "

Moss Bros said sales at its central London stores dropped by six percent in July as tourists postponed shopping trips and the transport network suffered major disruption as a result of heightened security.

And chief executive Philip Mountford told The Birmingham Post its three city stores - Hugo Boss at the Mailbox, The Suit Company at the Pavilions and the Moss store on New Street - saw a drop off of a "a few percentage points" for a couple of days after Birmingham's city centre evacuation.

He said: "But last week the Mailbox was up week-onweek, New Street had a great week and The Pavilions was well up."

After the city centre evacuation, and a controlled explosion on a suspect package, police warned Birmingham faces "a different kind of normality"

West Midlands Police officers revealed plans to increase CCTV surveillance of the main arterial roads into the city centre to keep track of suspect vehicles.

Chief Superintendent Peter Goodman, the police commander for central Birmingham, told the city's Chamber of Commerce council: "We are getting back to normality, but it will be a different kind of normality."

He said the number of officers would be in strategic areas around the city to provide a "visible " deterrent and physical reassurance.

And he revealed that officers would also be working more closely on locations, people and communities considered to be 'vulnerable' such as Asian businesses and places of worship and the 'postcard' locations such as the Bullring and The Mailbox.

CCTV surveillance of roads into the city centre is being stepped up, with technology and existing intelligence being used to identify suspect vehicles and monitor and control their route to their final destination.