Christmas shoppers have been evacuated from a city centre shopping mall this morning.

Fire crews raced to the Whitefriars Shopping Centre in Canterbury just after 10am.

They were called to reports of a car fire and a number of shops - including Boots and Tesco - were evacuated for up to 20 minutes.

A silver Peugeot 307 had caught alight on the second floor of the multi-storey car park.

A Kent Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: "There was a small amount of smoke from a car on the second floor of the multi-storey car park.

"We used a dry-powdered fire extinguisher and were called at 10.08am, it stopped at 10.23am."

Whitefriars spokesman Martyn Barr added that no one was hurt.

He said: "It happened just after 10am this morning.

"There was a small engine fire in a car and obviously the fire brigade aren't very far aware and they responded very quickly.

"The shops reopened after 15 to 20 minutes.

"Everything has reopened, no one has been hurt and the car park in back in business and people have returned to their vehicles."