Some novel ideas were being suggested to help bring trade back to a town centre ten years ago this week.

A high street could be transformed in to a fashion parade with live models posing in shops windows as part of plans to boost trade.

Earlier this year traders in Epping High Street voiced their fears that the new Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford, east London, would drain business from them.

They claimed that their plans to hold a series of special markets in Epping and reinvigorate the town centre had been blocked by Epping Town Council, who cited a medieval law in the town charter prohibiting competition with the Monday market.

Now traders have formulated a new series of innovative plans to shake the high street in to life.

They include a fashion festival, with catwalk shows and live models posing in shop windows; a week long jazz festival including an open-air concert in Epping Green and an art festival, with local painters, sculptors and jewellers exhibiting their work in cafes, shops and restaurants.

Barry Seager, of Epping Town Centre partnership, which has drawn-up the plans, said: “We think that this would be a great way of bringing the community and the town’s businesses together to celebrate Epping.

“It would be an excellent way to raise the profile of the town during the Olympic Games next summer and we would love the Town Council and community groups to get behind the plans.”

Sally King, who works in Lanes clothing shop in the High Street, said: “I think having models in the windows could work in the high street. I think it needs something a bit quirky.

“It is a bit of fun isn’t it? Anything that brings in a few more shoppers and a few more customers to the Epping has got to be a good thing.”

However, other shopkeepers were not as convinced.

Roy Cain, who runs Roy Cain Tailoring in the High Street, said: “That would not at all be in keeping with the character of this business. I have no interest in anything like that.”