HIGH Street shops in Winchester are wasting energy and money by leaving their doors wide open during the sub-zero temperatures, green groups have warned.

The practice has been labelled “shocking” and “mad”.

No fewer than 30 stores — mostly national chains — in the city’s main shopping thoroughfare were found to be open to the elements in an investigation.

However, independent stores such as those in The Square chose the cheaper and greener option to keep their doors shut.

Of the stores approached by the Chronicle, some said it was a national policy to keep doors open, while many others declined to discuss it, referring all queries to head office.

The latter was true of Next, which had two doors open in freezing weather. A customer closed one of them when the Chronicle visited, only for a shop assistant to reopen it.

Outward bound shops Blacks and Millets — which ironically both sell clothing to keep the cold out — also had doors open.

And it was not just clothes shops but bakeries, mobile phone sellers, toy stores, shoe retailers, cosmetic firms and bookshops.

Tea and coffee seller,Whittard, was amongst them and its store manager, Carol Hobbs, said it was a national decision.

“If we did close the doors they would just spring open, so they have to stay that way,” she said.

Across the High Street at fashion store, Fat Face, area manager, Andrew Penney, said: “It’s important for customer flow that we keep our doors open.

“It’s what most people on the High Street are doing and it’s what customers expect.”

He added that it also made life easier for people like mothers with pushchairs.

Winchester Friends of the Earth spokeswoman, Hazel Agombar, takes a different view.

The mother-of-three said: “Whenever I take my buggy out in Winchester, people can’t help enough, and always open the door for you.”

She acknowledged that the decision at most stores was not local, but national.

Ms Agombar said: “But if just one shop decided to shut its doors then all the rest would probably be shamed into doing the same thing.”

She added that FoE estimated that stores spent £300m nationally on wasted heat, or 25 per cent of their energy bills.

“If you heated your house, you wouldn’t then open all the doors and windows. It’s completely mad,” she said.

Robert Hutchinson, who chairs Winchester Action on Climate Change, said it had already lobbied shops about the issue.

He said: “It really is quite shocking, and it is an obvious and ridiculous waste of energy.

“The cost of heating is also going up, and that cost is likely to be passed onto ourselves as customers.”

He added that he had “sympathy” for shop workers who were told to keep doors open, but urged the firms to reconsider.

Such a move could reduce Winchester’s carbon footprint, he said, which was previously exposed as the largest per person in Britain.