SHOPPERS in Newport will be able to advantage of late-night opening at Newport Market in the run-up to Christmas.

With the city's Christmas lights turned on this weekend, Newport is well and truly in a festive mood.

With many wanting to get some Christmas shopping in, Newport Market is extending its business hours to Monday to Friday until 8pm, with businesses able to stay open later into the evening. As part of this, every shop in the market will be open until 8pm each Thursday. 

The newly refurbished market is filled with all sorts of stalls which sell crafts, cakes, American sweets, comics, Welsh cakes and much more.

New businesses have also joined the food court in the past month, with Bab Haus a Mexican food stall joining the market recently.

Sarah Fussell, Owner of Little Acorns at Home said: “From next Thursday we will be open until 8pm with the food court open a little later.

“It will all be on our individual sides and it's looking very Christmassy in here already, extending opening hours will help us as independent businesses.

“The people in Newport can enjoy some Christmas shopping and have a bite to eat here, we did a trial run on Thursday and it went great.”

Next week many businesses in the Market are also trialling reduced hours on Mondays and Tuesdays during the Christmas period.

As the market is starting to be transformed with Christmas decorations, Rouge Welsh Cakes are creating some very unique Welsh cake flavours for the festive period.

Joe Granville who runs the Rouge Welsh Cakes stall said: “We are going to stay open to 8pm, we are going to do mince pie Welsh cakes with hot custard dip and a stuffing and gravy flavoured ones.

“Everyone in here should do well, we got the food on and the drinks, people can walk around do some shopping and enjoy a pint.”