A couple of weekends ago, me and Martin were walking through Trinity, the new shopping centre in Leeds and we walked past the boards for where Primark was going to be. Ever since the centre opened those signs have had written on them "Coming soon", or something to that effect, but this time they had changed. The date listed was 3rd December and I might have had a little squee! Primark is one of my favourite stores, and the thought of a brand new one opening very soon was very exciting. Fast forward to last Saturday afternoon, and I found myself in town with a bit of time to kill. Two hours and £65 later, I left the store with a ridiculously heavy bag and feeling pretty amazed with what I had just seen! Let me talk you through my experience...

Not only was it a Saturday afternoon, last Saturday marked the second-to-last one before Christmas. I'd nipped into Boots a few minutes before and that was heaving, with ridiculous queues for most of the checkouts (Although that was mostly down to people being a bit daft and crowding around one set of tills, but that's another story). After leaving there feeling a bit flustered, I have to admit that I approached Primark with some hesitation. Every Primark I've ever been in has been hell on a Saturday (Especially the original store on The Headrow), with stock being thrown around left, right and centre, queues that you ended up giving up on and not being able to find anything in your size - or if you did, it was screwed up on the floor covered in a dozen footprints. So when I walked in to the new Trinity store and didn't have to push anybody out of the way, I felt a bit odd to say the least.

As I walked in, I noticed several interactive signs - moving images, advertising some of the items within the store. This really helped to make the store look modern and fresh, and bring it up to the standards of other, higher-priced high street stores. I think I stood watching them for a good minute before I realised what I was doing! After tearing myself away from them, I realised that I needed a Christmas jumper, so after a bit of wandering I found the right section. This was the only section of the store that was heaving, and playing up to every Primark stereotype under the sun. After not being able to find a single one in my size, I managed to grab a couple in a size smaller and beat a hasty retreat. As I did though, I noticed about six or seven staff stood around the Christmas jumper section, hastily folding and putting back all the jumpers that customers had thrown around. Pretty impressive, I thought.

This attention by staff was something I noticed all around the store. In every section I went in, there were always several members of staff tidying up and refilling stock. This is something that is a rare sight in the Headrow store, so it was something that really surprised me! Almost everything in the store was incredibly neat and tidy, and displayed really well. There was plenty of aisle space for customers to shop, and for staff to work without getting in the way of each other. All the aisles were more than wide enough for wheelchairs and prams, and none of the shelves felt like they were crammed in together - I was amazed at the size of the store and the amount of the stock that was in there without compromising on space. It made browsing all the more pleasurable and a lot less stressful than previous visits to other stores.

The store has three floors - women's clothes and accessories on the ground floor, women's clothes, shoes, lingerie and home on the first, and men's, kids and customer services on the second. The home and men's sections in particular really impressed me - they were much, much bigger than I expected. Everything was laid out clearly; a clear sub-section for shoes, for example, and all workwear and gymwear in dedicated areas. On each floor there is a set of changing rooms; and would you believe me when I say that there was no queue for them at all? When I went in to try some things on, I saw why - there was about 50 or so changing rooms to each floor! The changing rooms were a good size, with decent and well-placed mirrors. However, there was only one rail and a bench on which to put your items, which I found extremely lacking. I ended up having to hang some of my items on the curtain rail!

When I eventually got everything I wanted, I made my way to the tills, and I would say that there were 25 or so on each floor - compared to Headrow's 15 or so this is actually pretty impressive. Despite the store being fairly busy, the tills had one or in some cases two members of staff assigned to each one, so I didn't actually need to queue at all! Considering I'm used to a pretty lengthy wait, I was truly amazed by this. When I was paying for my items, the guy and girl at the till asked me how my experience was at the store, which as I'm writing for you guys now was overwhelmingly positive.

I did notice, when I checked my receipt, that the people at the till had charged me twice for an item I'd bought. When I went back to the till, they were very apologetic but did say that I needed to go upstairs to customer services for a refund, which I have to admit was a bit annoying. This has always been the case with Primark - for mistakes such as these, they should be able to sort them out at the checkouts rather than having to be sent elsewhere. However, when I made it up the customer services I was pleasantly surprised to find about 15 tills up there, and plenty of staff ready and waiting. The guy on the till did need to get a manager to sort out my refund but it went smoothly and it was dealt with quickly - members of the Headrow store, take note (Last time I was there I ended up waiting for 15 minutes for two of the supervisors to finish chatting about how drunk they had got at the weekend)!

Overall, I was very, very impressed with Primark's newest store. I believe it is to be one of their flagship stores, like Oxford Street as it has "Trinity Leeds" written on the bag - the Headrow store doesn't have the equivalent written on theirs. The store is absolutely huge, and while it was a bit of a maze to get around, it had so much to offer that I don't think anyone would mind getting lost in there - I certainly didn't! The store was clean, tidy and spacious with a large number of attentive staff - I just hope that they can keep it looking nice for a few years to come. I currently have all of the items I bought still in the bag they came in, ready to photograph for a haul post - which I will try and get up at some point this week!