HOODED tops and baseball caps will stay in York shopping centres, despite the decision of Britain's largest shopping centre to ban them.

Hoods and hats were banned as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent last week - a move which got the backing of the Prime Minister.

But Colin Wilding, the general manager at McArthurGlen, who was himself centre manager at Bluewater for three years from 2000 to 2003, said such draconian measures were not necessary in York.

Mr Wilding, who has been at the designer outlet in Naburn for eight months, said: "We don't think it's necessary to introduce such a rule as this. Obviously, at Bluewater they have their own reasons for going ahead with it.

"It's all about the volume of people and we are a much smaller outfit - I think if it was what our customers wanted then we would have to listen, but at the minute there doesn't seem to be much demand for it."

At Bluewater, customers had complained that gangs of youths prowled the stores intimidating visitors and concealing their identities from the watchful gaze of CCTV cameras.

York city centre manager Paul Barrett said he had a great deal of sympathy with the move, but said any such rule would be impossible to enforce there.

"At privately-owned shopping centres like Bluewater or McArthurGlen there are specific entrances and exits that can me monitored, but that just isn't the case in a city centre like ours - everybody's got a right to go about their business wearing what they like.

"Of course we have kids going round with hooded tops on, but we can't put a ban on it in York."

Diana Golding, manager of the Coppergate Centre and chairwoman of Retailers Against Crime in York (RACY), said RACY had done a lot to drive criminals from town centre shops.

She said: "Retailers are fighting shop theft on a daily basis, and when thieves' faces are obscured by hoods or caps on CCTV footage it makes it difficult to identify them and secure a conviction in court."

At Mayhem, in Jubbergate, York, which stocks caps, hoodies and other skateboarder fashions, manager Leanne Garbutt said they had no plans to take hoodies off the shelves.

She said: "I'd no idea about the ban - I can see why they have done it, but not everybody that wears hoodies is up to no good.

"Hoodies are one of our best sellers and we certainly have no plans to stop stocking them."

Scott Hall, 19, from Pocklington and Brendan Carson, 16, from Micklegate in York, who were out in York city centre on Saturday said they were opposed to the idea of a ban.

Brendan said: "It's a pretty stupid and prejudiced idea. It's just picking on youths because of their age - you wouldn't exactly ask a 90-year-old in a hat to shift out of a shop - it's discriminating against people because of their age."

Updated: 10:43 Tuesday, May 17, 2005